


Fire the Crucible

by Quercusrobur



Series: Sun In My Sky [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Canon Compliant, Dark, Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Porn With Plot, Post-Episode: s06e11 The God Complex, Rape/Non-con Elements, Temporary Character Death - Jack Harkness, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-05-31 02:53:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 37
Words: 72,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15110342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quercusrobur/pseuds/Quercusrobur
Summary: After the God Complex, the Doctor spends two hundred years running. Inevitably he finds Jack again, but when he's already at the breaking point, how can he bear the pain of Jack's immortality?





	1. Dreams of rain

**Author's Note:**

> Oddly, this story began as a wish to find Jack some rest, in the neverending grind of life after life after life. This is not that story, except peripherally. It is instead a rather dark story of two people with far too much on their minds, but too much between them to let go. Shades of the Time Lord Victorious, somewhat timey-wimey, and quite a bit of explicit, plot related sex. Non-con is not a major feature, but it does occur in one chapter. No explicit violence. Ends hopefully, more or less.

_An ancient creature, drenched in the blood of the innocent, drifting in space through an endless shifting maze. For such a creature, death would be a gift. ~The God Complex_

 

 

In the endless night, he dreams of rain.

He is a long-time observer of rain, a connoisseur; it had been a minor balm to his soul all the long years of waiting in Cardiff, and he has never quite gone back to his spacefaring freedom since. There’s not enough weather in space.

There is no end to the varieties of rain, and he dreams of them all. That constant, just-past-mist rain that his beloved greatcoat had sheltered him against for so many years. The steady driving rain of summer, and the cold wind-blown spatters of rain as winter comes in. The warm tropical downpours like a bucket over the head, gone as quick as they come. The monsoon rains that soak and drown and renew the desert. The tidal rains that cascade down from the high plains in a wall of scouring fury. The rare rain of his childhood, that stings like sand in the wind, infinitely precious.

He has pretended, sometimes, but he never _really_ tires of rain. Not really.

He dreams of other times and far-off places, strangers’ lives and unknown faces, because even as impossibly constant as he is, there is always rain somewhere else. Anywhere the rain falls, there he may be as well; never having to get back up, he's always falling free.

 


	2. Almost always

Another day, another loss. He keeps telling himself he won't, but somehow… And in the end he always comes back to the quiet emptiness, just a boy and his box. It is always a mistake, thinking he can have anything else. Ignoring the extra hat on the hat rack, the Doctor closes the doors firmly, turns and stomps toward the console. The light from the central column is soothing like always; almost always. The TARDIS is singing to him, remembrance and sadness and concern, and he stops at the edge of the platform, rubs his face. Takes a deliberate breath, and another. “I'm fine,” he says, with a good try at a carefree smile. “I'm always fine.”

She sounds doubtful. Maybe regretful, or maybe that's him; he has done this too many times, too many, and it is just a lost cause because it _never_ comes out right, if he could just get it _right_ … but there won't be any more stowaways. He feels the TARDIS turn her attention away, pretending to ignore him. Something snaps in him, just a little bit more to add to the _everything_ , the vast chasm of brokenness that he has been papering over again and again, and he takes two long strides and slams his fists down on the console.

“No! _No more stowaways!_ No more _anyone!_ ” He slams his fists down again, and then stops, breathing heavily. He hates this, hates this side of him, the bright blaze of despair pushes him so much further now and he scares himself with these rages. Used to scare Amy too, his bright blazing Pond who is still alive, and maybe it's time to try calling again… but that has never worked out either. He will see her again eventually. It's all ending anyway, it's all going to end and why not when everything is so empty. The TARDIS is empty; his head is so empty.

The Doctor straightens his back, unclenches his hands. Doesn't look around. Straightens his bowtie carefully, brushes down his coat. Turns neatly to the stairs, pulls out the sonic screwdriver, and slowly, deliberately, walks below the console to find something to work on.

He's always fine. Almost always.

-+-+-+-

Teeth grinding, eyes blazing, the Doctor sweeps through the console room, stopping only to throw the lever to take the TARDIS off this thrice-damned planet and into the Vortex. “Give me something to destroy,” he says, and it feels like ground glass in his throat. His hands are clenched at his side as he takes the stairs three at a go and leaves the console room so he doesn't destroy that instead.

He arrives in a room of glass; benches covered in beakers and flasks, condenser setups and tubing, shelves of jars and bottles in a rainbow of colours, thick bowls and kitchen crockery. It is such a relief, even if part of him is sick at what he is doing, as he sweeps an arm across a bench and hears the horrible nerve-tearing sound of a hundred pounds of glass smashing on the floor. He does it again, and again, and he is screaming he realizes dimly, it’s all just too _much_ , he won’t be _used_ like that! The Doctor picks up a heavy bowl and launches it at a shelf, and it is like a waterfall, an avalanche, a shockwave, cascading shining and splintering to the floor; the sound is immense and overwhelming and it carries him away.

He is kneeling in the wreckage, hands covering his ears, and there is blood dripping down his face from a cut somewhere. He takes his hands down and they are smeared in blood too, shards of glass little burning needles of pain peppering his abused senses. A flash of movement catches his eye and he sees himself in reflection, wild eyes, bloody handprints on the side of his face, and then there are shattered reflections everywhere and he stumbles to his feet and flees.

-+-+-+-

Two weeks later, days of maintenance, six excursions for attempted distraction, nine close calls which honestly is an embarrassing ratio, four hours spent in jails of some sort - not consecutively - a day entirely taken up by an art collection on 13th century Monigl that he has been thinking of seeing for, well, centuries, and all those other numbers he always tries not to think about, the Doctor sits, legs and arms crossed, in one of the jumpseats in the console room. There is no one there to care. The emptiness is still oppressive.

The hat is gone; he took that, and the rest, back when he went to deliver the news. He tries to do that. He had felt he owed it to Linder’s family, even if questionably so to Linder themself, but now… perhaps only to his own conscience. Delightful family, of course, even if they are all apparently _mad_ …! But he hadn't known, and it was the TARDIS let them on board in any case. The occasional stowaway, when even he has trouble getting in sometimes, has always been baffling to him.

Too soon, too soon, this isn't helping. Trying to _avoid_ any more terrifying rages. He makes an effort, rubs his hands together briskly and sits up. His green coat is draped across a railing but he can't stand the idea of quiet just now, so he straightens his sleeves and pulls the coat back on, tidies his hair and bowtie. He pats the console, deliberately gently. “Let's go somewhere nice, old girl, just you and me. Just a little bit of trouble we can put right.” He pushes the randomiser, then lets off the handbrake and throws the lever to send the TARDIS on her way. He doesn't bother to look at the display; let her take him where he's needed.

As soon as the column is still and the TARDIS has landed with her customary thud, the Doctor pops the doors open, looking for trouble, ready for anything. The silence is nearly deafening. There is the slight susurration of forced air, no staleness, but no smell of life either. Wide corridors in a pale green stretch away to both sides. A planet, and it is clearly a medical facility; a quarantine facility, he realises as he peers at the symbols ubiquitously stamped along the walls, and suddenly his heartsrate nearly doubles as he remembers the last time. But this is not Two Streams, he has no one to lose, and _this_ is not how the Doctor dies.

“Hello?” he calls, calming himself with some application of will, pulling out the sonic screwdriver to scan the area. “I'm the Doctor. Is anyone here?” The sound suggests open corridors for a fair distance. The screwdriver has detected nothing questionable in the environment, so he switches to scanning for life forms. “Seventeen thousand, three hundred and twenty nine assorted humanoids, all in stasis. Why did you bring me here, I wonder.” The Doctor turns to his left, mostly because that is the way he is looking, and strides down the corridor till he reaches an alcove with a data screen. He summons up the facility information and scans through it, looking for details, anomalies, some kind of clue as to why the TARDIS has brought him here.

The planet is Ophicche, for many years a minor tourist destination for extreme weather sports, especially cloud sailing on the massive storm walls that flow with tidal force in a few areas. It has been under level four quarantine for the last eighty five years, continuing indefinitely until a cure is found for the neurodegenerative disease, thought to have originated in something washed up along the beaches by a storm, that killed most of the population. One of seventy two such facilities on the planet. Not something the Doctor is susceptible to, almost certainly, although the corridors should be sterile in a stasis facility in any case. But why is he here?

It is nothing so far obvious, but as the Doctor shifts his attention to the timelines in case it is events and not facts he is looking for, he feels a terribly jarring sensation, like a cross between walking into a wall and opening his eyes to the midday sun.

Not facts indeed, but a Fact. Jack is here.

The Doctor considers leaving. He considers it very strongly. It is the single thought in his rather impressive mind for an entire 3.2 seconds, whilst he stands, frozen, flinching from the immovable Fact that is Captain Jack Harkness. And then he _gets over it_ , because he won’t run away anymore, because Jack is _worth it_ , they have done this before and it gets easier every time. He is not proud of those seconds. Never abandon you again, he had said, and meant it; not that he has felt the need to seek Jack out again, either, once he was satisfied the good Captain could continue on his own. But it has been forty six years (three months, eighteen days) since they last parted ways and it is always a shock at first, encountering that dangerous solidity. The rock in the stream, the incompressible iron core.

He is not pleased with his meddling TARDIS, either. Either Jack is really in trouble, which seems unlikely given nothing at all is _happening_ , or she thinks he needs the company. Which is not true, because he's _fine_.

But just in case it is the former...

“Jack Harkness, where are you?” he says to himself, and then discovers the data screen is also voice activated. There are no hints in the computer, but then Jack must have been using a different name here. There are no hints in the corridor, of anything whatsoever; he has rarely seen a place more devoid of features. Even the quarantine notices on the wall are simply embossed into the green material, it has all been extruded in place; just-in-time construction is popular for this sort of application. The Doctor takes a deep breath of sterile air and shakes off his temporary immobility. He claps his hands, spins on his heel, and continues down the corridor, coattails flaring, leaving the data screen behind. For all the use it was, he thinks sourly. Wants something done right, has to do it himself. He fiddles with the sonic screwdriver as he walks, and it and the muffled sound of his boots on the friction-coated floor are the only sounds. It is not coincidentally the same way he picked to turn at first, because he is walking toward, not running away from, and it’s harder but _better_ ; even though the whole time he is wondering what he’s doing here, what Jack is doing here.

He is still too raw to be looking forward to company in the TARDIS, even though it feels so empty, but he can’t just leave Jack here. Can he? Maybe Jack won’t want to stay. Maybe Jack won’t want to _go_. It's a more attractive thought than it should be, really he’s good company after, after the uncomfortable bit at the beginning; the Doctor will have to wake him up and ask at least. He can’t be here _waiting for a cure_ , he doesn’t need one. Here by mistake, too sick to object when they were loading people into stasis? Unwilling to leave for fear of spreading the disease? He ought to be clean after it kills him, though. Here on purpose, for some unknown reason? Maybe he has another _team_ here he would rather stay with. But now that he is actually thinking, the Doctor can imagine worse options as well, and his steps speed up. If he were discovered, brought here involuntarily, used as part of the effort to find a cure? People do horrible things when they are scared; what price a man who can destructively test each iteration? Suddenly the Doctor wonders who Jack can possibly call on for help, in all the long years between their meetings.

He has made three turns down identical pale green corridors, seeking the path of greatest resistance. Ahead there is a door, finally, marked S3A. There are both biohazard and quarantine warnings prominently displayed in stark black as well, but the Doctor is not overly concerned. The facility will re-sterilize after the seal is breached, and if he is contaminated, well, what does it matter? He is already planning to bring Jack back with him. The TARDIS infirmary can handle it.

The sonic screwdriver easily disables the lock, and the door slides open. As the lights inside S3A come up, he sees it is a fairly standard setup. Hundreds of stasis pods, all loaded into tall revolving cradles for access and retrieval. It would be hard to find anyone else without a case number or current name, but not Jack, not for him.

“Come on Jacky-boy, come out, come out, wherever you are.” Just to hear himself talk at this point, he never has done well with silence. It is getting increasingly difficult to push himself forward, but no one has ever accused him of lacking stubbornness, and he doesn’t slow. He turns to his right, makes his way to the second cradle back on the third aisle, and thankfully only has to scramble up two pods till he can look in at Jack. Who looks uncomfortably similar to dead. He hates when Jack is dead.

Not that he _is_ , shining like a blinding beacon in the Doctor's time sense. Not at all dead. Terrifyingly alive, a point of impossible solidity, a singularity distorting Time around it. But all the same; better he should stop looking so dead.

“Right, well, there’s your number.” He hops down and convinces the cradle to shift Jack’s pod to the bottom without trouble. After a few button presses, a solid kick, and some untranslatable suggestions fail to start the reanimation process, however, he makes an attempt at persuasion. “Look here, you recalcitrant bucket of bolts, I’m the Doctor and you can take your quarantine and stuff it. That’s my Captain, give him back.” Finally the application of the sonic screwdriver succeeds. He straightens up and tugs at his lapels, folds his arms to wait. “Here we are then, wakey wakey.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(A.N. Ophicche is pronounced o-_ peek _-sh)_


	3. Good morning, sunshine

At the end of the endless night, there is a fading, and there is a singing, and there is himself, coalescing out of the rain he has been dreaming of for lifetimes. It is a return to consciousness like few he has experienced, and he has experienced so very, very many. He is warm, and dry, and in no pain, his basic checklist; but beyond that there is the singing, familiar and beloved and bittersweet. _Hello, beautiful_ , he thinks, and holds tight to the rare feeling of safety.

Even more unusual, he feels profoundly rested. It is worth savoring, so he lingers as long as he can in this muzzy half-aware state. Eventually reality intrudes, as it always will, and he starts to put together his scattered memories and current circumstances. He remembers the quarantine order, the stasis facilities being rushed to completion. He remembers the dead. He remembers waiting to die so he could leave without causing a panic, having missed his chance to do anything to speed it along. He vaguely remembers the stasis pod. He remembers that his name has been Jonah Morten for quite a while, which makes it somewhat surprising that the first thing he hears, apart from the singing, is an impatient voice saying, “Come on Jack, up and at ‘em.”

On reflection, it is also a very familiar voice, and not unexpected although it has been a long time. He will always be Jack to the Doctor. He opens his eyes.

He is lying in a stasis pod, so it looks like he managed to retrieve a relevant portion of memory. The Doctor is standing next to it, somewhat less explainable since it’s not as if Jack was in any _danger_ here, but then when has he ever followed any sort of rules. He is slightly bent over Jack, looking like he was about to start poking him. Impatient, indeed. This Doctor is particularly bad at personal space, but Jack doesn’t mind if he doesn’t. His hair is falling down over his eyes and he looks vaguely irritated, which comes off as petulant on this young face, and he is adorable, really, and Jack decides it is probably time to get the motor functions integrated again.

He reaches up without a word and grabs the front of the Doctor’s shirt - not a lot of strength yet but good enough - and pulls him down, flailing a bit at first, until his lips meet Jack’s. It feels like coming home, and Jack makes the kiss as loving and welcoming as he can. Coaxing the Doctor's mouth open with a soft swipe of his tongue, he falls into the familiar taste and the smooth slide of the Doctor's cool tongue against his. He feels the Doctor's fingers brush his cheek, trace his jaw, settle curled around the back of his neck. With a quiet contented noise, Jack lets himself forget everything else, just for a moment.

But the Doctor pulls away much too soon, done indulging him. His fingertips linger a moment more, but there is nothing particularly warm in the expression on his face as he stands up, and Jack remembers that the Doctor doesn’t make social calls.

He smiles nonetheless. He can still hear the TARDIS singing. “Good morning, sunshine. Thanks for the wake up call.”

The Doctor's expression sours slightly. “You're certainly chipper today. Effect of the disease, or was it being in stasis for most of a century?” He is scanning Jack with the sonic screwdriver, and casts a critical eye over him after he reads the result. “What are you waiting for?” He slips the screwdriver back in his pocket, tugs on his coat, and turns away as if he can’t bear to stand still any longer. He probably can’t, not with Jack so near.

Jack levers himself up out of the pod, glad his strength is returning quickly. And not just because it doesn’t look like he will be getting any help up; knowing the Doctor they may be running shortly. He eyes the unusually caustic Time Lord consideringly. Whatever is going on, it doesn’t seem to be inspiring a great deal of urgency, but the Doctor coming to him without obvious cause is enough to start him worrying. In all the centuries they have known each other, he has never had any great joy out of pressing the Doctor for answers; but that has never stopped him trying.

“It's great to see you again, Doctor, but why are you here? It’s not the most lively locale.” Which may be the understatement of the century, and he is developing a good feel for what qualifies. Shrugging uncomfortably in the bland knit shirt and trousers he doesn’t remember acquiring, Jack does a few careful stretches. The more he puts back together, the less he's sure he is remembering correctly, because things are not making a lot of sense. Given the facts as he remembers them, he ought to feel either better or much worse. If he had still been sick when he was put into stasis, he would be busy dying slowly and messily right now. But he is familiar with the effects of stasis on a healthy, live subject, and if that had been the case he should not be sore and stiff and logy, like he slept for far too long. _Dreaming_ is entirely… impossible.

That has never been his favourite word.

The Doctor glances back at him. “Just passing by, thought I’d pop in,” he says carelessly. “I might ask the same of you, but I have a pretty good idea of at least the last eighty five years. Coming?” He starts toward the door, but visibly reconsiders in the middle of his second step and pivots around, rubbing his hands together. “Or did you want to stay? I can put you back. Just pop the lid back on, catch up with you later.” He buries his hands in his pockets and regards Jack without expression, shadowed eyes fixed on his face. But Jack understands this, hears _I wouldn’t leave you_ , and _come with me_ , and _please_.

Jack shakes his head. “As long as I’m no contagion risk, there’s nothing to stay for.” _Yes_ , he says, _always_. He gestures at the recently occupied pod. “Can you… do something about this? I can’t imagine what they’d think waking up to find someone disappeared from quarantine. Certainly nothing good.” He can imagine a few things, actually. Interstellar panic is not his goal here.

The Doctor raises an eyebrow and gives him a half smile, which Jack is relieved to see. He pulls the sonic screwdriver back out and fiddles with it for a few seconds, then aims it at the pod. “Good thinking, Captain. People missing from stasis pods, could be anything. Could be Wirrn again.” He shudders, tucks his screwdriver away, opens his hand toward the door. “Funny the things you remember. Shall we?”

“After you.” Jack pushes the lid down and follows the Doctor away from this place of disconcerting peace.

-+-+-+-

“I knew it,” Jack gasps out, leaning back against the TARDIS doors he has just slammed shut. “I _knew_ there would be running. Oh fuck, my feet.” He slides down to the floor to examine his feet, which, while bloody, don’t look as bad as they feel. At the moment he is not sure whether that's good or not; more damage might get him more pity points, which he could maybe parlay into other things to cheer up his grumpy Time Lord. The Doctor’s very sensible decision to break into a level four quarantine facility left them running for, well, not exactly their lives in his case, from the automatic re-sterilisation triggered by opening the doors to the stasis bay. “Why couldn’t they have put me in there with shoes? That friction coating is hell to run on.”

There is no response from the Doctor, and Jack leans his head back against the doors and relaxes into the TARDIS’s song. Although she's been singing to him since he woke up, it is a great relief to be back on board after so long. “Missed you, beautiful. I expect it’s really you I have to thank for the wake up call.” He pats the deck fondly as he feels warm acknowledgement from the TARDIS. “And for bringing him,” he adds softly, and can hear a note of worry as well. He thinks reassurance to her.

The Doctor is moving briskly around the gleaming console, no longer out of breath if he ever was. He has thrown his coat off; it is a longer green one Jack hasn't seen before. There is a slight frown on his mobile face, though he was laughing whilst they pelted madly through the corridors, and his lips are moving but Jack can’t hear what he is saying. Even for him, he is running unusually hot and cold, and Jack suspects he is continuing an argument with himself over having Jack on the TARDIS at all. Which is immaterial now that he is here, couldn’t get him out with a prybar until he finds out what's wrong. If the Doctor needed Jack’s help for something he would already be hounding him to get up, so odds are the crisis has passed and he is dealing with the fallout. Grinning at the TARDIS’s shining ceiling like a conspirator, he decides to head off the likely incipient comment about dropping him off. “So, Doc,” he calls, “not that I’m not glad to get out of there, but I was having some lovely dreams. Just couldn’t wait any longer to see me?” He tilts his head toward the Doctor with a wink and a friendly leer, and sees him look over, open his mouth, then close it again with a thoughtful scowl. Jack has never had difficulty providing distraction, by whatever means necessary, and he has had a lot of practice distracting this particular man.

“Lovely dreams, really? No one dreams in stasis, Jack, your brain is just,” the Doctor mimes flicking a switch, “switched off.” He took the hook at least, not either of the easy excuses for an argument; that is reasonably promising. Jack is willing, to fight or to fuck, and speaking of survival food is starting to sound really good too, but he is just as interested in finding out what is going on. Well, nearly as interested; damn the adrenaline. _Down, boy_.

“Nonetheless, really dreaming. For a long, long time. Should be impossible, I know, but, well.” He waves his hand vaguely at himself, then rubs his hands over his face. “Help me to the infirmary? My feet are killing me. You can run a full scan, too, I'd like to be really sure I'm clear.” It had been a fairly awful way to die, which he must have done, even if he can't remember the event itself. Probably mercifully. He hopes everyone else had been equally unconscious at the end. Then he rubs his face again, slowly pressing his hands up and into his hair, cutting off the thoughts. It is easier than usual. _Here and now_.

The Doctor, back on steady ground with a problem to solve and someone to help, makes his way over to Jack in the awkward jumble of knees and elbows this incarnation is prone to. Jack swallows a laugh which probably would have come out sounding slightly hysterical, and instead offers a small but heartfelt smile as the Doctor carefully winds his arms around him and pulls him to his feet. He rests his head on the Doctor's shoulder briefly, breathing in the familiar scent of him with relief. They are of a height, with him barefoot.

“Sorry, Jack, I wasn’t thinking. Just, here,” he moves his arm down to Jack’s waist, “can you walk?” His eyes are bright and concerned.

Jack winces as he settles his weight back on his feet, but it will do. He puts his arm around the Doctor’s shoulders, leaning heavily. Considers his bloody feet. “I can walk. It’s going to leave footprints all over her lovely decking, though. Sorry, beautiful, I’ll clean it up.” At least it's not the old metal grating. The TARDIS hums reassuringly to him.

“Never mind, few minutes with the dermal regenerator and you’ll be good as new. And she’ll take care of it, she likes you. All that flirting.” The Doctor rolls his eyes, but his hold is gentle as he supports Jack in a slow limp toward the infirmary.

“Nothing wrong with appreciating a beautiful lady.”

“Oh, stop it.”

 


	4. Pleasantly unpredictable

In the infirmary, the Doctor is all manic energy, settling Jack on a bed and then whirling away, tossing the dermal regenerator over his shoulder with surprising accuracy and then pulling an assortment of other devices out of cupboards and drawers. “Get started on that, won’t you, Captain. Let's see, brain activity, neurotransmitter levels, check for any lingering nerve damage, you don’t look quite well,” he shoots a quick glance back at Jack for confirmation. Jack shakes his head; he still feels a bit off. “Baselines from last time you were here, though, well, they’re probably still good for comparison. See if we can manage to, hah,” he laughs, amused at some private joke, “check your history.”

The Doctor continues muttering to himself as he starts connecting components together, now peering closely at something, sometimes tossing it aside and reaching for something else. Jack sets the dermal regenerator aside and just enjoys it for a few minutes; he is plenty capable with gadgets himself, but watching the Doctor dig into a problem is one of life’s little joys. Opening the packet of sterile wipes waiting next to him, he absently swipes at his foot, and hisses. “Shit! Remind me not to do that again.”

Pausing in his work, the Doctor gives him a tolerant look. “Which part? I’m hardly going to encourage you to get caught in the sterilisation. Quick enough death, but… “ He swallows, and turns away again. “Wouldn’t even know where to look for you.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. Wouldn’t be much left of him; those revivals are never fun. “Sorry, nevermind. Be long with… whatever that is?”

“Not long,” the Doctor replies absently. Jack continues cleaning his feet in silence, wondering how long he will be playing patient, and how much he can get away with today. Considers shucking out of the ill-fitting trousers and shirt, and would have most days, but he can’t predict how the Doctor will take that at the moment and he is starting to suspect what’s going on here. He looks back at the dermal regenerator, which is currently calibrated for neither human nor Gallifreyan biology, and considers. He is going to have to push the Doctor to talk about it, because that is clearly his part in their little play this time, but Jack knows that for now, the strain of having him so near is letting the Doctor forget about everything else. _Like running yourself into the ground_ , the Doctor told him once, _or fighting till you can’t get up off the mat. Takes your mind off things._

And that’s alright. This too, Jack can be.

It will wear off in a day or two, which is soon enough. The Doctor is now aiming something that looks like a cross between a metal octopus and a butterfly at Jack’s head, glancing back and forth to another device in his other hand. He looks interested but not worried, and hasn’t told Jack to hold still, so Jack quietly recalibrates the dermal regenerator and passes it slowly over his feet until they are pink and new looking, then rubs his feet with the warm towel at the foot of the bed to get rid of the tingly feeling, sending the TARDIS a thought of thanks.

Setting his odd contraption behind him, the Doctor turns to the side and regards another device, wriggling his fingers in thought. “Nothing obvious, which is probably good. Well, maybe. Could be very bad, of course…” he glances up to Jack’s put upon expression and cuts himself off, “almost certainly good.” He pokes the new device and after a few seconds it makes a loud _ding_ , startling Jack. “Oh good, and we’re clear from contamination, too.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Well that’s lucky, since I’ve just bled all over the TARDIS’s floors.”

Looking askance at him, the Doctor points out, “I did check you with the sonic before I let you in here. _You_ said,” he's poking at Jack now, “you wanted a full scan.” Jack concedes the point with a sideways nod, eyeing the Doctor's hand with interest; he pulls it away. “Have to wait for some results from this thing but I can report you’ve no lingering neurological damage. I’ll want to monitor when you sleep next for comparison -” Here Jack holds up his hand.

“That sounds great, but if it’s all the same to you, I need to eat first. I am absolutely ravenous. And I’d like a shower. Then I’d be more than happy to get back to talking about beds and how you can get me into them.” Flustered is such a good look for this Doctor, he thinks happily, and gives the Doctor a rakish grin. He hops down off the bed and saunters out of the infirmary before the Doctor has stopped sputtering. Maybe he should have taken a chance on losing the clothes after all.

-+-+-+-

In truth, Jack is not remotely tired; if he sees a bed in the next three days it won't be for sleeping. The adrenaline and endorphins from the run back to the TARDIS are wearing off, leaving him feeling a little edgy, and what he wants is something to _do_. Right after something to eat.

He smells it before he reaches the kitchen. “Coffee! Darling, I have no truer love than you.” The TARDIS sounds amused as he races to pour himself a cup. He takes a sip, hot and black, and savors it blissfully. “Mm- _hm_. I haven’t had real coffee in, I don’t know how long. At least thirty years.” He takes another sip, and another. “Not counting stasis. Let your divine origin and good intentions never be called into question.” The Doctor would tell him to stop flirting, but he prefers to keep a good relationship with anyone with this much influence on his daily life. She has long since become reconciled with his immortality, and they have always got on well aside from that.

There is also a comprehensive assortment of foodstuffs available; Jack builds himself a sizeable sandwich as a starter. He is just sitting down to the table with it and his third cup of coffee, to which he finally bothered adding sugar, when the Doctor appears in the doorway. The sandwich has most of his attention, though, so he doesn't bother with more than a nod of welcome before setting to. The Doctor stays leant in the doorway, arms and ankles crossed, head tucked down, regarding Jack from under his brows. Jack continues eating in large bites punctuated by swallows of coffee, watching the Doctor in turn. He is looking less flighty, to Jack's experienced eye, and he dares to hope that the desire to drop him at the nearest spaceport has passed. It doesn't bother him anymore, knowing the Doctor has this frantic impulse to flee. Not when he stays; not when he always comes back.

“Nothing on the scan,” the Doctor announces abruptly, still watching Jack. “Though it does look more like you’ve been sleeping than been in stasis, so that’s something; anomalous recent brain activity. But you're healthy as, well, as you. Healthy as a Fact, Jack.” He rolls the words around in his mouth consideringly.

“Good,” Jack says, around a mouthful of food.

The Doctor grimaces. “Your table manners are still atrocious.” He pushes off from the doorframe and skirts around the edge of the kitchen, busying himself with tea preparation.

Jack swallows his mouthful pointedly. “You should talk. I've seen _you_ eat.” Usually better described as _not_ eating. Food-based festivals are not something he expects to experience in the company of this Doctor, unlike a couple of fantastic memories from his time with his first Doctor. “Won't be taking you to New Paris any time soon.”

The Doctor harrumphs, but says nothing, which is so unlike him Jack resumes his temporarily interrupted worrying. “So there I was,” he says, tried and true distraction technique, “living a quiet life on a planet, which I admit doesn't sound like me, but sometimes… Ophicche, lovely place, it's all interesting weather and extreme sports and, you know,” he waves his hand around, not sure where he is going with this. Suddenly not sure he wants to get into this story; that life is dead and gone, unusually emphatically so. Managed to lose the entire planet this time, even if it wasn't his fault in the slightest. “Maybe not so quiet. But it was good for a while. Friendly locals.” He grins, but the Doctor is still fussing with his tea across the kitchen, back turned. Jack stuffs the last couple bites of his sandwich in his mouth and gets up to pour himself another cup of coffee.

The Doctor retreats from him without looking up; the effusive mood of earlier seems to have worn off entirely. Jack counts it a good sign that he only retreats as far as the other side of the table. Reversing his chair, the Doctor straddles it, sets his tea down on the table and stares at it, looking like he could bolt at any moment.

As Jack is returning with his coffee, the Doctor seems to come to a decision and attempts a smile at Jack. “Is this one of the stories where everyone loses their clothes, Captain?"

Jack chuckles. “Would you like it to be?” He is not sure where the Doctor wants this to go right now; something is off, here, more than the usual discomfort, but Jack has learned over the years that it is safe to push, for a certain value of _safe_. The results tend to be pleasantly unpredictable. Right now, the Doctor is not running away, and he is fully capable of shutting Jack down if he wants to, at any point. Wanting the distraction, from the confusion, from the adrenaline letdown, from the questions, from the memories, Jack pushes.

He sets his coffee down on the table and circles around to where the Doctor is slumped stiffly. The Doctor's eyes follow him warily and his breathing speeds up slightly, but he doesn't move. Hitching his hip onto the table, Jack reaches out his right hand to cup the Doctor's cheek, moving slowly and staying visible the entire time. The Doctor stills at the contact; even his breathing stops for a long moment. Then he turns his head, nose into Jack's palm, and inhales deliberately, slowly. He's watching Jack watching him the entire time, and Jack can see his eyes darken, and he shudders. So easy to drown in those timeless eyes. Carding his left hand gently through the Doctor's hair, Jack pushes it away from his face and watches it fall back down. He traces his thumb over the Doctor's forehead, brow, across that cheekbone that could cut glass. Notices the Doctor smiling at him, strained but genuine, and smiles back. “What?”

“Sometimes you look at me like… Jack, you shouldn't, I'm not… You, of all people, should know that!” He starts out wondering but sounds upset by the end. Jack doesn't know what the Doctor thinks he's not but his smile is gone, and that is not what Jack wants, not at all.

“Shhh, I'll stop looking,” he promises, mostly as distraction, which is successful in at least derailing the Doctor from his well-practiced slide into self-loathing.

“ _Stop looking_ , what kind of idiotic suggestion is that, how do your ridiculous little brains -” and that's when Jack kisses him, which is a better distraction. The angle is awkward, and Jack only gets about half his mouth at first, but it is enough to shut him up. As Jack tilts the Doctor’s face up, he feels him swallow hard and finally his hand comes up to slip around the back of Jack's neck, thumb stroking his cheek. The Doctor licks his lips, but Jack is still so close that it touches his lips too, and he closes his eyes and meets the Doctor's tongue with his and it all works much better this time.

Suddenly the Doctor is standing, long legs untangling from the chair, mouth never leaving Jack's. His hands are on Jack's arms, pushing him back to sit square on the table, and Jack's hands are tangled in his braces, drawing him in, and as he steps forward to stand between Jack's knees he catches Jack's lower lip and bites down. An extremely undignified noise escapes Jack at that point. He opens his eyes to see the Doctor staring at him, arousal and terror in equal measure in his eyes, and maybe it was too soon, maybe it was much too soon for this.

The Doctor closes his eyes, hiding, Jack thinks, and his tongue is invading Jack's mouth and his hands are insistent on Jack's arse, pulling him close, and speaking of hiding these trousers really _don’t_ \- but something is wrong. He had thought letting the Doctor wear himself out against the wall of Jack's eternal nature would bring about a kind of therapeutic exhaustion, but this feels more like a bird beating its wings against the bars of a cage until its heart bursts.

He pushes the Doctor away, just centimetres, and waits until the Time Lord’s eyes focus on his face. Gently, gently here, though he is sure now he knows some of the answer. “Doctor. When is this for you?”


	5. A place to stand

Jack knows him far too well. He has waltzed back into the Doctor’s life wielding a veritable whirlwind of distraction, all his favourites: solve a puzzle, pick an argument, care for a companion, and all the cheerful but certainly sincerely meant flirting one could wish. The kiss after he woke up had been simple joyous welcome, nothing more or less, and that was… he's missed that, he has, even if it is embarrassingly sentimental. But since then, it has all been deliberate provocation, to get the Doctor through the initial pain.

Only it’s not working, it’s not _enough_. In such close proximity to the eternity burning under Jack's skin, it has been immensely difficult for the Doctor to hold to a course of action or even a rational train of thought. He knows he will acclimate, he just has to, well, not run away. And he is absolutely first class at running away. His last self ran away every chance he got; it's a well honed instinct.

He is not going to run away. He doesn't do that anymore.

But it is getting worse instead of better, this awful feeling creeping under his skin; there is a glare in the corner of his eye at every turn, reflected from the burning brightness of his resident Fixed Point. He is starting to remember why he left Jack back on that satellite, so long ago in the future; and why _now_ , why can't he just shut it away like before? If the TARDIS brought him to Jack for the company, for the distraction, she miscalculated terribly.

He hates that this is how he repays this most loyal of friends, hates that Jack has to live with the knowledge that his lover can hardly bear to be in the same room. He hates that he can't fix Jack, and he hates himself for sometimes not wanting to.

He hates himself for his weakness, and he hates Jack just a little bit for not running far and fast.

-+-+-+-

If he can’t break through the instinctual recoil himself right now, maybe Jack will do it for him, because he _wants_ , he wants to be past this pain and he does want what Jack is offering; and he is starting to want the fire in him, and that is nearly enough to scare him away again. This, then, is the best he can manage in the event: enough of an invitation for Jack, and then to sit frozen between flight and the desire to immolate himself.

When he breaks, it is toward immolation, and he is terrified of what he might do. There is a healthy dose of simple desire too, so long coming but so easy now, with this impossible man. But Jack sees the terror and pulls away. A dark corner of the Doctor's mind is spitefully glad to find that there is still something about him that Jack does not know, because he is misinterpreting the conflict entirely and he has no idea.

So gentle, as he watches the Doctor from barely a handspan away. Like he's fragile. “Doctor. When is this for you?”

Suddenly he is furious, frustration and despair and anger and arousal and self-loathing combining into something stronger than he can control. He yanks himself away from the Captain's hands. “Have you _forgotten_ , your tiny little ape brain can't hang on to simple facts, is that how it is for you now? Mind like a sieve? Every mortal a mayfly, lives writ on water?”

He can see the pain stark on Jack's face, he doesn't try to hide it, but he won't, he can't stop.

“How much longer can I run, do you think? Just avoid one single day, on one rubbish little planet.” He is pacing now, quick steps across the kitchen floor, hands clenched into fists. Jack had been one of those loose ends he had wanted to tie up, _entirely_ figuratively, before his impending date with destiny, and surely Jack can't imagine his situation would have _changed_ in any relevant particular; after all, he's not _dead yet_. It seems like an unnecessarily cruel question. “I've seen it writ in history, Jack, am I supposed to deliver myself there like a lamb to slaughter? Just drop in, how is everyone, are you sitting comfortably, here to see me die then are you? I'm not _opposed_ to it, I've nothing _against_ dying, everything has its time, everything dies. Except you.” He is not quite brave enough to look at Jack again after that, turns away and braces his arms on the counter. “It's obscene,” he says, toward his shoulder, “making me complicit in it. I _won't_.”

He stands there, head hanging, breath shallow, for minutes, feeling each second march past as they always do. As much as he is outside of it, he is also a creature of Time and lives out his own linear life, albeit in a dramatically nonlinear fashion from the perspective of the universe. Finally he sighs and breaks the silence. “Casarilli, 46 years ago.” The last time he saw Jack; a long time ago. He doesn't go looking for him. He doesn't need him. Not now, not ever.

He hears Jack's chair scrape back, feels that immense stillness creep close behind him on silent feet. It touches him, Jack touches him, lightly on the shoulder. “It's been almost 300 years for me. Tell me if I'm hurting you,” Jack says softly. Things seem oddly out of sync, like Jack is having a different conversation with a different person. The Doctor says nothing. “Please, Doctor.”

“No,” he lies. Part of him welcomes the pain; part of him craves it. He thinks maybe Jack doesn't believe him, because he makes no further move.

“I know it's hard for you at the beginning. It doesn't bother me. I'm here.” A more obvious waste of breath the Doctor has never heard; his _there-ness_ is beyond description. “I want to be here. I need to be here.”

The Doctor hears the certainty of timelines in this statement, and despairs. “Yes that's, thanks, thank you, Jack.” He can't, right now, he can't, he can't. “Go take that shower, why don't you.”

Jack hesitates, then withdraws his hand and leaves the kitchen without a word.

 _Why now?_ The Doctor slams his fist on the counter, meditatively. Again, and again, and again, a slow counterpoint to his still-beating hearts.

The TARDIS is silent in his mind.

-+-+-+-

His tea is cold. Good for the synapses, tea. Should make more. He pours it down the drain, gathers Jack’s dishes and abandons them all in the sink. The relief of Jack being gone is nearly enough to make him want to follow and apologize, which doesn’t make any sense; the Doctor suspects he is not thinking clearly.

Conflicted doesn’t even begin to describe his current state.

He has missed Jack; he _has_. It is always worth the uncomfortable time at the beginning when they run into each other. They didn’t stay together long the last time, both looking into a sentient-trafficking ring on a satellite in the 26th century. They had spent three days breaking it, then turned it over to the Shadow Proclamation and run back to the TARDIS so as to avoid turning themselves over as well. Flush with achievement and adrenaline, it had been a memorable day. Days. Alright, a week, and Jack had been… remarkably happy to see him. Very, ah, inspired and inventive, and he is probably blushing, remembering it, just as well Jack has left the room. Before that they had spent three years together, not long after he left his Ponds; the Doctor had needed something he could fix, and Jack had needed fixing.

But this time the distractions aren't big enough, or the darkness is already too close to the surface, or he is just too raw to bear the affront to reality that is Jack, and this is why he ran from him in the first place, abandoned him on that dead satellite and tried to forget. Lied to Rose and let her mourn him. _Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world_. If Archimedes, a mere human, might do that, what might the last Time Lord do with an immovable Fact of time and space beneath him?

Facing the Fixed Point of his final death, already lacerated by loss, and pain, and betrayal, the temptation has never been stronger to take hold of that eternal flame and burn; and burn Time away with him.

The Doctor buries his head in his hands, gripping his hair tightly, pulling. A low groan escapes him; it is all just too much right now. Maybe in a couple days. Maybe a week. Jack won't leave, he knows, but he will give the Doctor a bit of space for a while. He had been a better man, back then, strong enough to run; he can’t seem to make himself run today, the temptation well rooted in his mind. He will just have to get past it, because with that kind of power he would be every wrong thing he has ever stood against.

He lets go his hair and tosses his head to get it out of his eyes. Strides out of the kitchen and finds himself tracing the familiar path back to the console room. He can hear the TARDIS most clearly there, and maybe that will help, though maybe not, because this is her fault in the first place. He doesn't know what she's playing at, and he doesn't know why Jack thinks he needs to be here, either. He's hardly going to go ask, right now. The Doctor clatters down the stairs to the console, fishes around in his coat pockets for his screwdriver, and descends the second set of stairs looking for distraction. He settles himself in the sling; then, suddenly at a loss, simply leans there and listens to the TARDIS sing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _With a grateful nod to Trobadora’s story[Archimedean Point](https://archiveofourown.org/works/54717)_


	6. Lost his moorings

Trudging off to his room alone, Jack's mind is working overtime on the question of the Doctor's timeline. He had been expecting the Doctor he has come to know, who shows up to whisk Jack out of particularly disastrous situations, occasionally fixes them, and makes sure he is back on his feet before leaving again. He never stays long, but once past the initial impulse to flee he tends to be overly solicitous, if anything, rather than… this.

But instead, this is a Doctor from long ago, relative to Jack's timeline. He has seen the Doctor half a dozen times since Casarilli, things this Doctor hasn't done yet. Meeting nonlinearly is always a danger between time travelers, but he had thought they were more or less linear in relation to each other so far; that is apparently not the case. Although he would not be disappointed at all to find that the most recent visit, on Ophicche only about six months before the plague hit, turns out to be vastly nonlinear. Jack hopes that stern-eyed man is far in the future for his Doctor. The others had all been this Doctor, looking about the same age if sometimes extraordinarily worn down and world-weary, and Jack hadn't realised. He lives whole lifetimes between seeing the Doctor.

Someday, that's all that will be left to him: visits from ghosts, echoes of long-lost love. He doesn't know how he will cope with that. He doesn't think about it if he can help it. “Here and now,” he reminds himself; it's how he stays sane. And here and now, there is a _shower_. Jack turns it on, strips down, and groans as he steps in. “Sweet mercy, a proper shower at last. Nothing like weeks of dying in your own shit to make you appreciate a shower.” When the whole planet is dying of a paralysing plague, help is in short supply. There had obviously been a basic clean off somewhere in the stasis process, along with the awful clothes, but it just doesn't compare. He sticks his face directly in the spray and _enjoys_ it, damnit.

He and the Doctor may be out of sync, but this is a real part of each of their lives, and of their life together which he wants as much of as possible; thinking of it as the past in any way would be a mistake. So as he begins to relax under the hot water, he starts setting aside his previous expectations and understanding of the Doctor. Jack lives a partitioned life already, lifetime after lifetime too much to hold all at once, and it is easy enough to set aside one box of memory and take out a different one.

Here and now, the Doctor still thinks he has a death sentence hanging over his head. Jack suspects he has also recently lost someone, a companion or a friend; he knows the symptoms. The Doctor is mean when he's lonely. As well, he has encountered Jack himself relatively few times at this point in his timeline; possibly just two or three times in his current body. Presumably hasn't found the kind of working peace with Jack's immortality that he will, yet.

“Oh, Doctor,” he says sadly, realising he has been approaching the Doctor all wrong. “All those words and so few of them useful.” Not that he would know to say; nothing has been out of order for him, yet. What a state he must be in. Jack won't be trying to touch him again for a couple days; no closer than across the kitchen table, he decides. The Doctor still needs to talk to someone, and who understands losing people better than Jack? He has just lost everyone he knew _again_ , after all. The thought doesn't hurt as much as experience has led him to expect. Arke, Omiche, Raul, all dead. Susa brought him to the quarantine facility, he remembers, so he hopes she is safely in stasis waiting for a cure, but he will never see her again in any case. It still hurts, but with no immediacy; almost as if those eighty five years in stasis had actually passed for him. And he remembers rain.

It is nothing he can do anything about, he decides, including understand, so he puts it away for now. For now, the Doctor needs him, and if he is feeling unusually well rested and emotionally resilient, well, he'll take it as a gift.

Jack takes his time in the shower, washing away the years of stasis and the memory of a prolonged death in a slowly decaying body, putting away his time on Ophicche in its own box of memory. He reaches back for that time long ago with the Doctor; not before they were lovers, thankfully, but before they were comfortable. Driven more by need. He suspects that is an accurate understanding of the current Doctor. Needs, more than wants, Jack here, needs what Jack can provide, solace and control when the Doctor has lost his moorings. Jack knows he stops running eventually, and maybe he will find out why, but he also knows to expect a difficult time ahead; enough so that the Doctor came back to reassure Jack that they would make it through. He is beginning to appreciate the warning, but the more he thinks about it the more it worries him. He stops thinking about it for now. He’s here, and he’s not planning on leaving.

He hums songs he remembers from Ophicche and Earth and in between as he washes, and then washes again, and if he spends a bit of time remembering the time he convinced, will convince, the Doctor to shower in here with him, well, who’s counting. After all, it is important to make sure everything works after prolonged stasis.

His head is full of things he can’t say; as the Doctor will tell him, _spoilers_. He tries to put it all away, except for the confidence in a brighter future. For the Doctor, he can believe in such a thing.

-+-+-+-

The medical issue shirt and trousers are consigned to the bin. Jack rummages in his wardrobe and pulls out tight dark trousers and a white button down shirt; considers pants, and decides yes, might as well. He pulls the trousers on happily; the clothing on Ophicche had tended toward the utilitarian, which in context was mostly all shades of brown and green, loose for airflow and unrestrictive. Jack prefers contrast. And restriction, sometimes he definitely prefers restriction. He smiles wryly at himself in the mirror. _Habits of several lifetimes._ The Doctor really starts worrying about him if he stops flirting, so it's just as well.

Jack buttons the shirt but leaves it untucked, rolls up the sleeves. There are boots waiting for him at the bottom of the wardrobe that look vaguely familiar, but he is kind of enjoying this new life, new choices thing and decides not to bother for now. Running for his life whilst actually in the TARDIS is not something he has experienced, and he hopes to continue in ignorance.

He briefly reconsiders his choice now that he has had _that_ delightful mental image, but compromises by promising himself he will go search the TARDIS wardrobe for a suitably different choice of footwear later. The Doctor will understand, he thinks, or maybe just laugh at him. Or maybe that is some other time, and right now he won't notice at all. Maybe he won't see the Doctor at all for the next few days. No shortage of ways to occupy himself in the TARDIS. And the next thing on his list is make, and then eat, more food. The sandwich was nice, but he had intended it as a starter and by now he is hungry enough again that he is considering raiding the Doctor's tea biscuits just because they're ready to eat. He doesn't know whether people usually wake up from stasis ravenous; maybe he will read up on that. Later.

Jack pats the wall in thanks as he heads for the kitchen. He's certain the room is much neater than he left it, last time he was here. She does take care of him.

-+-+-+-

There is a plate of cheese and nuts waiting for him in the kitchen, he assumes so he doesn't have to resort to the Doctor's tea biscuits. Just as well, that would have put them both in a worse mood. Thus fortified, Jack hunts around and finds everything he needs for a big pot of fairly random but hearty soup. He uses the cooking time to explore all the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen thoroughly, and finds a vast assortment of familiar and unfamiliar gadgets, various food-making apparatuses he could probably succeed in adapting as armaments but not much else, and a fantastically mismatched collection of crockery in all the leftover space. It is a little different every time Jack is here; the Doctor may be the biggest pack-rat in all of space-time, and Jack loves it.

When the soup is done, he eats two large bowls of it, along with three thick slices of the bread he found, and finally feels like there is something more than a gaping hole in his stomach. He suspects he will be back for more in a couple hours, though. He puts the soup away and tries singing quietly as he washes up. Then winces, and returns to humming for now; he is disastrously out of practice and he hopes the Doctor is nowhere nearby to hear. He once spent twelve years leaning all he could about singing, and doing quite well at it. It will come back. It's not like he doesn't have time.

Next stop, library perhaps? It has been hours since the Doctor sent him away, and it will probably be many more before Jack sees him again. Time to settle in.

 


	7. Perihelion

Eventually, it is Jack cornering him inadvertently in the kitchen that brings them back together. Although they were never really apart, caught in each other's orbit since the TARDIS materialized on Ophicche, now brought to perihelion again. Which one of them is the sun, he wonders; but he knows, because he is the one catching fire.

It has been almost two days since they’ve seen each other, and Jack clearly expects that to have been long enough. His face lights up in a joyful grin that, in the Doctor’s current state of mind, causes him nothing but shame and fear. “Doctor! Long time no see. Easier now?” And because the Doctor does not want to cause this man pain, and has no real hope of extricating himself from his predicament by telling the truth, he nods, and smiles as best he can. It is good enough.

Jack, at least, is feeling better. His food intake has slowed to something more normal in the last day, and he did sleep briefly; the Doctor, still curious, had stopped by with his scanner but detected nothing abnormal. Jack has been spending much of his time in the Library, sometimes exploring one garden or another. The TARDIS is happy to keep watch over him. Oddly, he has taken to wandering barefoot, although she has put some effort into the shoe selection in the wardrobe. That’s Captain Jack Harkness, baffling time ships and tempting Time Lords for hundreds of years.

The Doctor manages a more sincere smile as Jack makes his way with his coffee to the table where the Doctor is sitting. “Refresh your tea while I’m up?” he asks, and the Doctor pushes his cup over. It is oddly comfortable, if only he could ignore how very uncomfortable he is. The Fact of Jack sits overwhelmingly solid in his time sense, sending timelines spinning off in odd whorls and new directions, and if he has acclimated to the feeling somewhat it has only made that voice inside him more insistent that reaching out to take this eternal flame would not destroy him, would instead recreate him and remake all he touched anew. He doesn’t know how long he can hold out, hold on. He tries to listen to Jack.

“Turns out it’s pretty normal to need a lot to eat after a prolonged period in stasis,” he is saying. What he has been reading in the Library, the Doctor assumes. “So at least that part is alright. I mean, I made that whole pot of soup and ate it in a day. Not to mention everything else. I was getting a little worried.” He pats his belly, which is just as flat as ever, to the Doctor’s eyes. “‘Course, I can think of plenty of ways to work it off.” He winks, and the Doctor blinks, the corner of his mouth turning up involuntarily.

“You’re incorrigible, Jack.”

“The one and only!” The Doctor rolls his eyes, because really, what kind of sense does that make; Jack sense. “So Doctor.” Jack looks apologetic, but determined, and the Doctor is abruptly wary. “Who did you lose?”

It's not the topic he was afraid of, and it takes him a few seconds to realize it’s because he had _forgotten_. His mind has been so occupied with Facts and fear and fire, he hasn’t thought of Linder at all since Jack came on board, and the reminder is not welcome. “No one,” he says crossly. “Mind your own business.”

Jack raises an eyebrow and sips from his coffee. “That’s a bit rich, coming from you, don’t you think? Champion minder of other people’s business.”

“I can’t help it if you get your nose out of joint over stupid things.” The Doctor drains his tea, prepares to leave. He is not interested in interrogation, or digging up the past.

Jack’s fist comes down on the table. “And I can’t help _you_ if you won’t tell me what’s wrong! Stubborn old man! I’m not interrogating you. I’m not judging you. There’s no one else who knows more about losing people than I do, so kindly _get over it_. You won’t help anyone by martyring yourself.” He just looks weary and concerned by the end, and he is right, the Doctor had forgotten, just a little. Three hundred years since he saw him last, he had said. Something much closer to a peer now, in this at least.

The Doctor settles back down. “It wasn’t like that,” he offers, a bit weakly. That eyebrow again, above his coffee cup, just waiting. But now the anger is starting to come back, and yes, the grief as well, and if Jack can’t take it then who can. “They were a stowaway. I haven’t had many companions lately, it's just, well it’s a lot of trouble. I wouldn't have taken them, but the TARDIS let them in.” He is still angry about that, but the TARDIS has given up even pretending to apologise.

“Them?”

He flicks his fingers dismissively. “More options on 32nd century Sto than in your primitive little society.”

Jack gives him a very unimpressed look. “I’m no more from 20th century Earth than you are, Time Lord. But they must have had a name.”

Just so. Why is he talking about this again? “Do you know, there are quite a few sentient species who don’t use names? The Magrith consortium -” Jack is waving his finger in a _hurry it up_ gesture; he used to be easier to distract. “Yes, well. Linder Markram. Rather brilliant astrophysicist, I’ve always had a soft spot for astrophysicists. Helped me out of a spot of trouble, said ta, on my way, next thing I know,” he slaps his hand on the table, “resident astrophysicist. I tried to put them off, but they wanted to see just one thing new, something previously unknown, and… well, we did. More than one, it was a few months of the most marvelous things.”

Temporarily distracted himself now, he attempts to augment his descriptions with gestures; he loves hands, they always improve things. “We saw the stars of Belaphus Phi in conjunction, all in a line like, well not a _line_ line but,” he splays his fingers out, then draws them together, hands forming a spiralling net together, “it's like a living thing. A very slow, living thing. We saw a black hole evaporate, which is much more impressive than you’d think from the description; we saw sixty two stars accrete sufficient mass to ignite all in one hour in Arctus D882.” He is not even really talking to Jack, now, but remembering the chase across the universe for the next best thing; he has always loved an appreciative audience. “We spent three days watching a proto-galaxy they’d observed from Sto evolve in 100 million year time lapse, just moved the TARDIS a bit closer every half hour. I’ve never done that before.”

“It sounds amazing.” Jack sounds a little wistful, for the sights or the adventure or the companionship the Doctor doesn’t know and can’t currently guess.

He drops his hands and nods, staring at his empty teacup. “It was. And then it… wasn't, as much. They were careless, when we left the TARDIS. They started talking more about their family. They had _children,_ Jack, I was dragging someone with minor children around the cosmos, they’d just left their spouse and children and run away to see the universe. Which, fine, but not in _my TARDIS_.” Now he is angry again, hurt and baffled and betrayed. “The last place we went, Sosilasoloon, that’s where they finally… How does someone just _not mention_ their children for months?” He gets a truly epic face from Jack there, for his trouble. He ignores it. “We were there to see the Cascades of Morning, but it was… I got there in the wrong season. Just at the wrong time all around, you know me. I couldn’t get to them in time. Over the edge and swept away. They didn't _care_ , Jack, it was _on purpose_. I was going to take them home, after.” Shaking now, he is gripping his cup nearly hard enough to break it. “They _used_ me, they never intended to go home, I went back to tell their family and they already knew. Their spouse told me Linder was always looking to the stars, had always dreamed of seeing something truly new, would happily take a one-way trip if it were offered. They sent him a goodbye before they left, he knew they’d never come home. The children knew. They used me to commit suicide, Jack!” His arm snaps out and the teacup shatters against the wall by the door, narrowly missing Jack, who doesn’t flinch. It’s not enough, it’s never enough, and he buries his head in his hands and waits for the shaking to subside.

Jack reaches out and carefully lays a hand on the Doctor’s arm, but it’s a burning rasp to him and he jerks away, stumbles out of the chair and around Jack and away, away.

-+-+-+-

Jack comes to him in the console room for the first time since he arrived. He is just fidgeting with the controls, not fixing, not going anywhere, not really thinking. Jack perches on a jumpseat, watches him. Neither of them break the silence for at least ten minutes (twelve minutes fifty seconds three milliseconds). Then Jack snags his hand as he passes by, tangles their fingers together. Doesn't pull him closer, which is good, or maybe it’s bad, because he thinks he might still pull away, but this he can bear, now; the numbness has gone and the pain is grounding him and he wants something _better_. Terrified and yearning and impossibly stretched, he is going to lose this battle soon.

“There wasn't anything more you could have done, Doctor. People make their choices. Good reasons, bad reasons, sometimes reasons past understanding.” Jack is stroking the back of his hand with his thumb; it is meant to be soothing. The Doctor can't look up. “We take our chances to live, and we can't know all the effects, we never can. Even you. Linder made their choice, and I'm truly sorry you were hurt as a result. But you know people _can't_ always make the choice to not hurt those close to them.”

As the Doctor stands there, tethered to the stillness at the center of Time, he thinks his choices to come may hurt others, and his reasons may pass understanding, but at least he will never lose his place in the universe. Not with this to hold to, to keep for his own. He feels all of time wheel dizzyingly around him, and holds tight for a moment longer.

The Doctor leans over, brushes a light kiss to Jack's lips, then frees his hand and climbs the stairs, out of the console room, a last desperate act of will. _You should leave_ , he can't make himself say.

Can a man with life to spare really understand a choice to do everything that can be done with a life that is coming to its end?

As his feet carry him away in his wandering orbit, he longs for the return; longs to touch that heat, to ignite, to burn.

-+-+-+-

The next time they reach perihelion, passing each other in the corridors between Jack's room and the library, the Doctor can't help reaching out, pulling Jack close with an arm around his waist. Jack comes eagerly, meets the Doctor's mouth with his own, his arms surrounding him fever hot and more steady than mountains. The Doctor places his right hand over Jack's constant, indomitable heart, beating _always, always, always, always,_ and, taking his chance to live, gives himself over to immolation.

 


	8. Straight into hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Starts earning its rating here. Explicit, rough, consensual._

As the Doctor forcibly backs him down the corridor, Jack thinks he may be in heaven; the Doctor’s tongue is in his mouth, and his hands are in Jack's back pockets pulling them tightly together, and they're heading gods know where because really the corridor would be fine. Jack doesn't care. It's been much too long. But the Doctor is taking them through a door, into the library it turns out, backing Jack step by step and then Jack is falling, shoved backwards unexpectedly. He lands on his back on a sofa and grins up at the Doctor. _This_ is more like it, rough and needy.

“Glad to see you're feeling better,” he says, but the Doctor doesn't reply, just swings one long leg over Jack and pins him down for another ravishing kiss. Gone a bit light-headed by the time the Doctor pulls away again, Jack neither knows nor cares what's changed from earlier in the day, not with that mouth doing such delicious things to him, pressing open mouthed kisses down his neck, biting at his collarbone, scattering rational thought. He groans and opens his eyes, tries to raise his hands to touch the Doctor; but the grip on his wrists is unyielding.

If the Doctor wants it like that, Jack has no objections. Relaxing back into the sofa, he drinks in the sight of the Doctor above him, in his shirtsleeves with hair quite mussed and getting worse, tickling Jack’s neck as the Doctor does… what is he doing? He feels his shirt loosen, and realises the Doctor is undressing him with that agile mouth, lips and teeth and tongue carefully undoing a button at a time. His hips thrust up involuntarily at the thought, or try to, in a bid for some friction, but there is none to be had. The Doctor is sitting astride his thighs and pinning his wrists at his sides, and that is all the contact Jack can get aside from the slow and slightly ticklish movement down his chest. He is effectively immobilised.

“Doc?” Jack tries to gather his slightly scattered wits. “You know I’m up for anything, but I could do something about all those clothes if you’d let me up.” He summons his best leer despite the awkward angle and wiggles a bit. Provoking a reaction, he has found, is the easiest way to find out what the Doctor has in mind; as much as he talks, he has a hard time setting clear rules.

The Doctor looks up from his task, sits back slightly, and gazes down at him with hooded eyes and an expression of faint curiosity. “The things I could do with you, Jack.”

Not exactly the look Jack was hoping for, general dishevelment aside, and not very informative either. He licks his lips and raises his knees a bit to try to tip the Doctor forward. Some encouragement is apparently necessary. “Tell me,” he suggests.

A barely perceptible shift in the lines of the Doctor's body, a change more of intent than reality, and suddenly the tension in the room ratchets up. This Doctor's moods can change as quickly as ever, Jack is already well aware, but even so it is a shock when some small part of his brain, rarely used in centuries, rabbits into motion crying _danger near, danger here_! A slightly queasy feeling clashes with the arousal Jack has been enjoying, and suddenly the Doctor's grip on his wrists takes up significantly more of his attention.

“Jack, Jack. My Jack.” The Doctor's voice is dark, a caress leaving ice in its wake. The detached look on his face has gone entirely. Jack is riveted now, staring into the eyes of the storm. “You are mine, aren’t you. Body, mind, and soul, I _own_ you. Your past and your present, your eternity. And you _want_ it.” The Doctor’s face has nothing of youth in it now, he is ancient and powerful and if Jack has thought before that he might drown in these eyes, it is nothing compared to this, this _devouring_.

“Doctor,” he says, he pleads; he doesn’t know how to continue, or what he is asking for. It’s true, it’s all true, but this isn’t what he was expecting, he has miscalculated drastically somewhere; this isn’t how they play, and the Doctor is deadly serious. Jack has been wrong and wrong again since the Doctor retrieved him from Ophicche and all he knows anymore is that it’s going to be bad but they _will_ get through it.

“Captain,” the Doctor mocks him. He shifts, tucking Jack’s hands beneath his knees where he is straddling Jack, and says, “Stay.” Hands free now, he finishes unbuttoning Jack’s shirt and pulls it from his trousers, exposing his chest. Jack could break free now, if he wanted to, but he thinks he doesn’t want to. The Doctor gave him what he needed a long time ago, and it looked a lot like this, at least from the outside. This time he can give the Doctor what he needs, whatever degree of control or ownership he is missing right now. As chill fingers explore his skin, he closes his eyes and gives himself up to the experience.

The Doctor can feel his surrender. His voice comes from much closer this time, still so dark but softer. Jack can feel his breath against his neck. “Good, Captain. I can smell it, you know.” He inhales, then licks Jack’s throat, bites at the pulse fluttering in his neck. “Blood that will flow until the end of time, pumped by a heart that will never stop beating. Some people would pay any price, for a thing like that.” Jack shudders. It is the kind of thing he tries not to think about. “I can taste it on you.” The Doctor pulls back, then lowers his head to lick a stripe from Jack’s navel right to the hollow of his throat. It is cool in the air and Jack moans, feels his erection coming back to life after the shock of fear. “The Time Vortex, all that tingly artron energy. You’re steeped in it, Captain.”

He sits back, and Jack opens his eyes when nothing else happens for a moment. His hands are crushed under the Doctor’s knees, and he aches for the Doctor to touch him, and he can’t do a damn thing about it, and it's glorious; it's been _much_ too long. He wishes, though, he had any idea what the Doctor is thinking, because he is in a dangerous mood. It is probably more danger than he has had personally of the Doctor before, but he is far from out of control and Jack, who searches out danger as a hobby, is finding it intensely arousing. He is just staring at Jack, focused and curious and brooding all at once, and as Jack meets his eyes he reaches out a hand to Jack’s mouth, brushes his fingers across his lips. Pushes a finger inside, and Jack opens his mouth and meets it with his tongue, watching the Doctor’s face.

“And you, you don’t know what it does to me,” the Doctor says, slightly flushed, his finger sliding slowly in Jack’s mouth. “You’re the center, the still point the universe breaks around.” He adds a second finger to Jack’s mouth, and Jack sucks them in, caressing with his tongue, and feels his eyes water as the Doctor deliberately pushes deep. “Offering yourself up to me. I could remake Time with you. Break every Fixed Point, right everything I’ve wronged. Did you wonder why I ran from you? You are _potential_ , Jack, burning bright, the fire of creation.”

He looks exalted, like an angel or maybe Jack's own personal demon, perched there above him, taking him over, taking them both down this path he has always fled from before. Jack thinks he might understand, now, why the Doctor gave him the gift of proof that they would make it through this, with trust still between them. Because if this continues, eventually he is going to have to stop the Doctor, and he doubts he would be able to otherwise; there have always been other people around to do the stopping, before. He knows this about himself: he is the Doctor’s man, always, and only prior orders could possibly keep him from following his general straight into hell.

That's probably where they're headed right now, in fact, so he hopes the Doctor's future trust is not misplaced. Closing his eyes again, Jack concentrates for now on the fingers in his mouth, sucking lightly, tasting the salty tang of the Doctor's skin. Suddenly they are gone and there is a solid pressure on his cock through his trousers, and he cries out helplessly as his back arches.

“No need to think, Captain. You’re mine, everything you are.” Voice dark and commanding, the Doctor rubs his hand up and down Jack’s cock, once, slowly, then squeezes. Jack cries out again at that, and his hips are twitching uselessly against the Doctor’s hand. He is not quite past thinking, but he is past _wanting_ to think, now, and it is a relief.

Then the hand is gone, and the Doctor is sliding Jack's belt off and opening his fly. He kneels up, and Jack yelps; the movement puts most of the Doctor's weight on the backs of Jack's hands, and something gives with a snap and a flare of pain. Ignoring this, the Doctor swats his flank and commands, “Hips up.” Jack does, and the Doctor yanks his trousers and pants down to his thighs and then settles back down. Definitely something grinding where it shouldn’t in his left hand, yes. But there is no respite, the pain is just a grace note as the Doctor’s hand envelops his cock, thumb rubbing the slick bead of precum over the head, fingers squeezing down individually, one-two-three-four; Jack fails again to do more than tilt his hips. More, he needs _more_ -! He doesn’t know how much of this is about sex for the Doctor, and how much is about conquering the impossible Fixed Point, and he can’t remember why he cares anymore as the Doctor begins to stroke him roughly, as he bends over to bite and suck dark bruises in a sloppy line up Jack’s abdomen. Jack is writhing, moaning, trapped and lost to the world. In fairly short order, he feels his orgasm building, but before he can come there are fingers clenched firmly around the base of his cock and he groans in loss and need as the feeling drains away. He opens his eyes again, not quite in focus.

“No,” says the Doctor, lips curving up in a possessive smile, hair spilling over his face. Jack desperately wants to touch him, but that is clearly not allowed today. If this is what he gets when the Doctor stops holding back, he may let the universe hang. “You’re mine, Captain, and you won’t come till I let you.”

Jack knows better than to try to answer - at times like these the Doctor says, usually good-naturedly, that he lies so much with words he shouldn't bother - but he meets the Doctor's eyes and nods. He won't risk him thinking, later, that he didn't choose this.

Staring down at him with those piercing eyes, the Doctor resumes the motion of his hand on Jack's cock, slower this time. He looks meditative, his gaze wandering over Jack's body, considering how to proceed - or how best to take him apart. His eyes settle on Jack's throat, and Jack moans and feels his heart rate jump as a cool hand presses against his neck, thumb rubbing firmly up and down beside his windpipe. It is a clear threat, but it is also breathtakingly arousing where Jack is right now and he is gasping and shuddering and very quickly rushing toward orgasm again. Again, the Doctor stifles it with a smile. Not trying to hold back the needy whines this provokes, Jack shakes his head in protest, eyes watering, hips bucking, and the Doctor makes a pleased noise at his reaction; no self-restraint has been asked of him aside from leaving his hands where they are, painful as it may be, so he has none. Jack's part here is to respond freely, and endure repeated misery, until he is so desperate he can't remember how to beg. He is well on his way. With each choice taken from him, Jack is gradually falling deeper into that that place inside where thought disappears; the Doctor is going to take him right to the bottom.

Once more, the Doctor’s hand is moving on Jack’s cock, relentless. It’s slick from precum now, and Jack loves the feeling but is starting to fear the result; all tied up in pleasure and pain. “Touching you,” he is telling Jack, and he really tries to listen, “burns, you burn, Captain. I need that fire.” The Doctor’s free hand wanders down Jack’s body this time and he thinks the Doctor has it wrong who is getting burnt; pinching his nipples and making him whine, tracing muscles and ribs, sliding down his flank with a terrible tickling feeling that combines with everything else to make a huge full-body shudder rip through Jack and nearly upset them from the sofa. Finally the hand reaches his balls, and gently, so gently massages, and Jack knows what’s coming next, and he sobs _no, please no_ as the Doctor denies him his orgasm a third time.

The Doctor climbs off him then, and there goes something in his right hand too as all the Doctor’s weight is on it momentarily, and that's, that's maybe more than he thought he was agreeing to but if the Doctor needs it… Jack is too far down to think of objecting, lying there stunned, oversensitized, ravaged and _not done yet_.

“On your knees, Captain.” Jack rolls and slides down till he is resting against the sofa, the Doctor behind him wrestling his trousers the rest of the way off. The Time Lord fishes in Jack’s pockets till he finds the small packet of lube, then laughs at Jack. “Always prepared, aren’t you.” Jack had been feeling hopeful, earlier, but now is just relieved the Doctor is going to bother with it; he feels roughed up enough for one day.

The Doctor peels off Jack's shirt and arranges him with his arms stretched out to either side along the sofa so he has no leverage at all, head resting on cushions warm from their bodies and knees propped apart, too far from the sofa for Jack to rub against it. His only relief will come from the Doctor. As it should be, he thinks, distantly. He lives and dies at the Doctor’s command, it’s only fitting. Of all the people in all the universe to be tasked with stopping him, Jack is the wrong choice.

He leans there, exposed and aching, for what feels like hours, because the Doctor is nothing if not a connoisseur of Time, before he feels a slick finger press unceremoniously into him. It is almost too much, and his breaths come in loud shallow pants as he focuses on relaxing. “Oh, Captain,” the Doctor sighs, still so controlled but _hungry_. “What a pretty picture you make for me.” He pushes another finger in and starts to fuck Jack slowly. He is beyond thought at this point, mind blank, just reacting, whining and writhing. When the Doctor curls his fingers to press on Jack's prostate, he gasps and his hips jerk and he nearly comes right then, except for the hard slap the Doctor lands on his arse at the same time and the certainty that he _can't_. “Mine,” the Doctor reminds him, still sounding deadly serious about it; and still entirely correct, damn his beautiful eyes.

Jack hasn't the sense he was born with at this point so he mumbles into the sofa, “Don't need to prove it to me.” He feels no surprise as the fingers are withdrawn, wonders vaguely if he will be left like this. Body, mind, and soul, the Doctor said, and he was right.

But he hears the zip of the Doctor's trousers, and a hand reaches around him to clamp down on the base of his cock, and he feels the Doctor close behind, the head of his cock pressing against him; then, with a strong slow push, inside him. After a small eternity he is full, past full, and he can feel fabric against his arse; the Doctor didn't even bother pulling his trousers down. He pulls out equally slowly, Jack can feel every millimetre and he sobs, he thinks there are actually tears this time, and he can't control what his body is doing anymore at all. He is held still between the hand on his cock and the other hand digging fingers into his hip, and the Doctor is fucking him torturously slowly, and his breath is coming in great shuddering gasps, interspersed with wordless, desperate cries. The Doctor might be saying something but he doesn't understand anymore, he's past thought, past words, past self, he's crucified here and the only thing he knows, has ever known, is the man behind him who is breaking him down, down, down.

There is a new pain in his shoulder as the Doctor bites down, and the hand on his cock loosens its grip and he's gone, he's decohering into air and light, he's probably not dying but it wouldn't matter if he did, would it.

Jack is unconscious by the time the Doctor stops moving, satisfied.

 


	9. Precipitating factor

When he wakes, Jack is neither warm nor cold, dry, and in no pain. He feels mild surprise at the last; on some level he was expecting pain. He can hear the TARDIS singing to him again, but it is quiet and distant and regretful. Memory comes trickling back, the sofa, his broken hands, the Doctor. _The Doctor_. He lifts his head and looks around, sees he is alone. Feels relieved and concerned in equal measure by this. The Doctor has never before left him alone after they play submission games, but that was no game.

Jack is no longer in the library, instead stretched out on his back on a large bed. Not restrained, but there are thick cuffs on his wrists, leather or something very like it, nearly ten centimetres wide. No mistaking the situation, here; he is a man under orders. The only other thing he is wearing is drawstring waist pyjama bottoms, bleached linen; which, really, drawstring waist? He supposes, given this Doctor's fashion sense, he should be grateful it's not an even more old fashioned drawstring _neck_ nightshirt. He remembers those. They were hideous.

He is comfortable and clean, and he wonders what was going through the Doctor's head whilst he washed and dressed an unconscious man he had just utterly ravaged. He wonders what was going through the Doctor's head, full stop. Given the state of his bruises and the lack of pain in his hands, and he flexes them carefully just to be sure, he has been out for at least an hour. He is still feeling more than a little vague, but that is to be expected after sex like that, not that he has ever had sex _quite_ like that before. Stretching toward the corners of the bed, he feels shoulders and vertebrae pop, then sits up and props his elbows on his knees.

This is the Doctor's bedroom, he realises with a frisson of fear he doesn't quite understand at first. He has been in here before, of course, but rarely after the three years they spent together long ago. After that, the Doctor had been… odd about it. He rarely allowed sleeping, in this bed.

Things are going to happen here that the Doctor won't be able to leave behind.

Jack waits. Whatever path the Doctor has chosen, he will follow; he’ll always follow, even when he is warned in advance that they’re heading straight into hell. He had suspected that about himself, but now he is sure. The Doctor, obviously, already knew.

-+-+-+-

Interminable hours later, Jack has resumed lying on the bed. Hands behind his head, he stares at the high ceiling; he is very familiar with it by now. It is deep red-orange, cut in sharp, long facets that cast shadows as it rises to the center, and Jack can't tell if the colour fades to black or if it is the light that fades away. The walls are a pale, hazy orange. He thinks it has been most of a day. It's hard to tell, but he is getting very hungry. The body surrounding the immortal spark in him still needs food, even if sleep is largely optional. He has used the bathroom that opens off the bedroom a few times, drank some water. He spent some time browsing the books on a shelf, but they are mostly in Gallifreyan and the TARDIS won't translate. He has heard the sound of her engines three times.

He hasn't tried to open the door or remove the cuffs. He's not sure he can, and he doesn't really want to find out; what he wants is for the Doctor to come and explain.

Most of the time he has spent lying on the bed, thinking. Over the years the Doctor has made few comments directly about the Fixed Point in him, but it has always been there between them, something terrible enough to make the Doctor abandon him and run, and keep running as far and as fast as he could. Jack understands a little better now why, maybe; if that power is something the Doctor can use, the temptation must be enormous, and this time his will was not up to the task. He has already lost all his hostages to fortune, and Jack is merely the precipitating factor in this madness born of a desire to get it right for once.

Now Jack is here, captured and kept. It isn't something he has any real objection to, when it is the Doctor doing the keeping; with all the time in the universe to look forward to spending alone, _with the Doctor in the TARDIS_ is a situation to appreciate no matter the particulars. At some point here, surely the Doctor will return with particulars.

He trusts the Doctor, and the Doctor trusts him to see them both through this. Jack may not be overly bothered by this side of the Time Lord, his violence and casual cruelty, his domineering arrogance, but the Doctor himself usually is and eventually he will remember that. Jack will be there to pick up the pieces; he is uniquely qualified for _that_ task, despite being utterly unqualified to stop the Doctor. And although he will follow, no one who has met him could possibly expect him to go _quietly_. The Doctor can own him, use him, open him up and empty him out and try to break him if he likes, but he is going to push back. This madness is temporary, he knows, is utterly certain, and he is willing to take on the task of getting the Doctor back.

He waits again, and listens to the TARDIS singing. It is just a background hum now, like she's resting. Maybe hiding. He can't imagine she meant to provoke this when she brought him on board, but he knows she doesn't experience causality in quite the way he understands, either. He sends her thoughts of love, and forgiveness, and hope, but doesn't hear anything he can call an answer.

-+-+-+-

Eventually the Doctor returns to him. The door swings open - Jack hears no sound of a lock so perhaps he could have walked out the whole time - and there he is, eyes feverishly bright, shirtsleeves rolled up, but otherwise looking surprisingly normal. He stops a step inside the door, and stands there regarding Jack, his face still and unreadable. Certainly Jack sees none of the self-loathing he would expect if this madness were losing its hold. Not that he wouldn't love to relieve the Doctor of that crushing weight; but not like this.

Jack sits up, swings his legs over the side of the bed, and takes a deep breath; time they got on with it, then. He meets those timeless eyes, too old in a too young face. “So, what next? Planning on reapplying for the Destroyer of Worlds job?”

The Doctor flinches, but it's not nearly enough to deter him from his purpose; Jack watches the veneer of humanity drain away, leaving the high, cold visage of a Time Lord in its wake. He is fascinated, in a terrible kind of way. Aside from the being before him, he has had more experience with mad Time Lords than anyone in the current universe, and it looks like he will be getting more.

The Doctor's voice rushes through Jack like a midwinter wind as he stalks closer, slightly hunched, eyes intent. “No more destroying. I can get them _back_ , Jack, with you.”

He grasps the back of Jack's neck and bends to take his mouth. The kiss is urgent and demanding, teeth clash and the Doctor bites down hard on Jack's lower lip, hard enough he tastes blood. The Doctor's tongue is in his mouth then, licking at the blood he realises, and too late, much too late, Jack tries to pull away. But he is caught fast, that thin frame belying an alien strength.

Then he feels the spark of life inside him stoked to an impossible furnace. He has time to think, with sick horror, that this is surely beyond what he can fix, before it is spooling out of him, ripped out from somewhere deeper than roots. Jack screams in mortal agony, and the last things he sees are the Doctor's eyes, burning with Time and the Vortex, as he falls.

 


	10. Apotheosis

Wild and limitless, the Doctor watches Time spin around him. All that was or ever will be, all at once, dwarfing his usual perception of local timelines as if he has been looking through a microscope for years. It is magnificent, far beyond magnificent, and he rubs his hands gleefully, bounces in place. “The Universe,” he declares, “is _cool_.”

Then he spins neatly and strides from the room, leaving the cooling body of the bright star whose light he stole for the universe to do with as it will.

It burned at first, but he hardly notices now. He is only minimally conscious of his surroundings, not sure if the golden haze separating him is actually visible to the eye or a phenomenon of his vastly more significant presence in Time. His timeline was already weighty stuff, long and convoluted and involved with so many important events he practically attracts them anymore, but there is a looming gravitas now. He feels rather as though he is a leviathan rising from the depths, soon to take worlds in his grasp, the fire of his apotheosis illuminating everything like a new dawn.

The Doctor leaps down the stairs to the console, only now hearing the terrible distressed noise his TARDIS is making. “Shh, what's wrong, old girl?” He flips switches, checks the display. “Nothing at all, and if there were I should fix it. We're going to fix everything. _Alive_ doesn’t need to be a sad word anymore.” He pats the console affectionately, then spins around, arms outstretched. “And this is where the magic begins!”

From the TARDIS he receives an emphatic rejection and the firm impression of a shove out the door. He folds his arms. “All _right_ , have it your way. _Out there_ is where the magic begins.”

Before he can touch anything, the TARDIS starts up. He grins excitedly, claps his hands, and dashes over to the doors, waits impatiently for the thud of materialization to throw them open. Luckily he keeps hold of the handles, as he is confronted with a panoramic view of a planet and a string of three immense space stations with more traffic than he can immediately take in, bright against the inky backdrop of space.

“What? You want me out the doors, _here_? That's rubbish, stop it.” But he is drawn, nonetheless. She has found him a truly compelling timescape; the Orbital Markets of Mermeriil are the mainstay of an entire galactic civilization for thousands of years, and remarkably conflict free. The timelines are positively artistic, but he can see a few flaws he might - well, mightn't he? A universal architect, with a dab of artistry; he might even try for a touch of whimsy.

He finds that he is, in fact, out the doors now. The TARDIS has a somewhat dampening effect on his expanded senses and he can see so clearly now. He hooks his boot about the doorframe and opens his eyes to the universe.

-+-+-+-

She continues distracting him like this, not managing to get him to any point he has in mind. She makes him leave every time, but her distress gradually lessens and it is alright anyway, easier to work outside her little pocket of transcendental space. The Doctor decides at the third stop that it is a very enjoyable tour and it is just as well to start small, and stops arguing. He spends rather a lot of time just admiring the grand view of Time and the Universe, or, he assures anyone who might be listening, scouting it out. At the fourth stop, there are sentients; they scatter before him, terrified, though he tries to be friendly as always. He ignores them thereafter, and smooths out a messy snarl in the timelines.

He is starting to feel the burning, in the grip of his stolen power. It is draining out of him as he uses it, which he had hoped wouldn’t happen but now is glad for, because he can feel it coursing through his body, threatening to consume. It has been barely two days, and he doesn’t expect Jack back for at least another. The last time this happened he was gone for four, but he killed someone with _that_ power drain and the Doctor has no intention of dying from this. Entirely the opposite. He is still a bit baffled by that encounter. He went back to see what happened, but why the Beast was on Earth he has no idea, nor why an excess of life should destroy it, and he was only able to get a vague idea of _how_ it drained Jack. Still, he can feel that life blazing away, the eternal flame; it was only a question of grasping it.

He has all the time in the universe, now. Jack is his, the Doctor has claimed him and he’ll never run, not from him; he knows Jack. The cuffs are not for restraint but to settle him, to help him remember where he belongs, to know he is taken care of. He walked back into life aboard the TARDIS after three hundred years as if he had never left, and he has never hesitated to die for the Doctor in many less worthy causes; this time he is integral to the effort. _His_ Fixed Point, his Fact, the sun to light his path, the flame to fire the crucible and make all things anew. The deep and steady still point around which it all revolves, and he the hammer to forge, the blade to shape, and the needle to piece it all back together.

The Doctor dampens the encroaching fire testing a Fixed Point, then settles in to wait. Everything feels colder now, without.

 


	11. Freefall

Life reclaims Jack with a familiar painful gasp. He clutches convulsively at the soft surface he is lying on, and opens his eyes to the same ceiling he remembers looking at before the Doctor…

His mind slides warily around that thought, for now.

There is a humming, and an intermittent whine, and a soft pressure in his thoughts, and a presence beside him. Jack turns his head to his left, and sees the Doctor. He is lying fully clothed, boots and brown tweed jacket included, has one foot balanced on top of the other heel-to-toe, and he is alternately flicking the sonic screwdriver on and off and flipping it in his hand. He is humming the tune to Frère Jacques.

Jack feels a hysterical moment of gratitude that the Doctor doesn't seem inclined to watch inane children's programming in his down time.

“Jack!” the Doctor cries, for all the world as if Jack had just taken an inconveniently timed nap. “Honestly, I've been waiting for days. Waiting is boring.” He frowns at Jack, slips the screwdriver into his jacket, then props himself up on his elbow atop the dark red coverlet to look down at him.

Swallowing in an attempt to wet his dry throat, Jack tries hard not to think about his dead body lying in state here on the Doctor's bed for days. It is a compellingly awful image. “You can't have been waiting here the whole time.”

“Well, true, of course, you know me, can't sit still that long. I kept busy, never fear. I'm the Doctor, I _fix_ things now.” He sounds _bubbly_ , proud of himself. “Been having a bit of a tour of some fascinating timelines. Small things yet, work around the edges, as it were.” He pushes himself up and flings a leg over Jack, settles himself over his hips. Folds his arms atop Jack's chest and leans down to nuzzle at his cheek affectionately. “It's been just marvelous, I don't know why we didn't do this sooner. I am glad you're back, Captain. It's awfully inconvenient, being dead for days.”

Jack is getting whiplash from this conversation, he doesn't know the rules anymore, doesn't know where he fits into this. Reviving to this, after the most terrifying two minutes of his long life, has him reeling, paralysed; he can _feel_ the fracture as his mind carefully dissociates the… event, sets it aside muffled in cotton wool so he can go on. That is usually helpful, but maybe not this time; he can't help it, though. There is no possible way to reconcile this with his memories of reviving to find the Doctor shattered yet again by another death he has rescued Jack from. He has been silent too long, apparently, because the Doctor draws back. He looks a bit hurt, a bit concerned, and Jack feels his heart break a little because it is so like the man he knows. Who are they now, he wonders, the madman in the box and the immortal wanderer, and who are they becoming?

“What's wrong? Isn't it good to be back? Think of the things we'll do together, no more mistakes, Jack, I can make it all anew.” He looks so young and earnest, a hint of smile just tilting the edge of his lips.

Jack almost believes him. The dark edge seems gone, burnt away in whatever transformation the Doctor has undergone, but neither does he seem quite sane. Someone ought to notify him, and it seems it's down to Jack. “Doctor, you've lost your mind.”

The Doctor just raises his brows and looks down at him with a vaguely disappointed air. “I'm perfectly fine, Captain. Never better. I'm going to fix things, you're going to help me, that's what we do.”

It is true enough, and of course he will help, but… Jack is having a lot of difficulty with the particular detail he should be questioning. Maybe they're done with that part of it. “Just,” he settles on a request he thinks the Doctor will understand, may agree to, “just ask me next time. Please.”

The Doctor nods seriously, gives an apologetic grimace. “Yes, that was wrong of me. I'll take better care of you, Jack, I promise. My Jack.” He unfolds his arms and lowers his body to Jack's, jacket brushing the sides of Jack's bare chest, shirt buttons pressing along Jack's sternum, and tucks his face into the space between shoulder and neck. His hands are burrowing under Jack's shoulders.

Jack brings his hands up to slowly rub up and down the Doctor's back, turns his head slightly toward the Doctor so their cheeks touch, and lets out a slow breath. What, after all, can he do when the Doctor needs him, but stay?

Temporary internal peace reached, Jack begins to relax beneath the Doctor. The cuffs on his wrists are not restrictive, just a soft pressure that tends to nudge him toward a state of mind the Doctor, apparently, wants. They are no hindrance as the movements of his hands lengthen, a little more each pass, until he is stroking from biceps, around shoulders, down the Doctor's back and over his arse, curling down his legs where they are still folded at Jack's sides to his knees, and then slowly back up again. He can feel the Doctor relaxing as well, and hopes the comfort of this familiar thing between them is still something they can share. After some little while, the Doctor's breathing is deep and even, coming out as little moans every time Jack's hands compress his chest, and he drapes over Jack, boneless and heavy. Jack, with the Doctor slowly rocking back and forth on top of him and the familiar smells of wool and time surrounding him, is on the contrary rather aroused, and he shifts his hips trying to find a more comfortable position.

The Doctor shifts too, and Jack groans quietly as he feels the Doctor's erection pressing against his own. There is a huff of breath on his neck and then the tickle of lips as the Doctor murmurs, “Go on.” Jack raises his knees enough to plant his feet flat on the bed, and between his hands on the Doctor's arse and languid thrusts of his hips, he drives them both higher.

The little gasps and moans escaping the Doctor are absolutely delicious. He is letting Jack set the pace for both of them, ceding control this time, although he has started an exploration of Jack's neck and collarbone with his lips and tongue. Jack shivers as the Doctor licks at his pulse; a predator in repose, but a predator still. He has always known this about the Doctor. It is everything the last time wasn't, slow and tender and mutual, but it's not quite enough. Jack moves a hand from the Doctor's arse, slips his fingers a little way under the waist of his trousers and tugs gently, asks, ”May I?”

The Doctor doesn't answer immediately, maybe somewhere else, maybe deciding. He grinds his hips down, wringing another groan from Jack, then says again, “Go on.” But he doesn't move, so the best Jack can do is to unclip his braces and, with some effort, open his trousers. There are at least fewer layers in the way, now. Jack can feel the Doctor against him better, and it is a significant improvement for the Doctor, if his now restlessly moving hips are any indication. Better all round, really; Jack tugs the Doctor's shirt out of his trousers, then slips his hands around, beneath, to grip bare skin. He kneads at the muscle he feels flexing and bunching there as he pulls the Doctor back into more coordinated movement against him. Something between a moan and a sigh comes from the Doctor, still pressed against Jack's neck. It is cool against his skin where the Doctor has drawn trails with his tongue. “Jack, yes, that's, keep going.” He does, thinks he could happily hear more of that needy, breathless voice.

Jack is still enjoying the slow buildup when he feels the Doctor start to tense. He has been losing himself in the geometry of the ceiling, but sharp nips along his collarbone recall him. The Doctor is grinding his hips down harder, urging Jack to move faster. ”Pushy.” It's a mild chastisement but the Doctor is having none of it.

“I won't have _this_ be boring too. Don't let me get bored, Jack.” He pulls his hands out from under Jack's shoulders, a little reluctantly it seems, and braces them to either side. Then looks down at Jack, who understands this as the order it is and nods, fallen into silence by long habit.

Propped up on his arms now, the angle is wrong for the Doctor; he swings his legs, one then the other, over Jack's, insinuating himself between, opening Jack's legs wider. Jack takes the opportunity to push the Doctor's trousers down far enough to free his cock, and gives it a few firm strokes whilst he has it, heavy and just slightly cool in his hand. The Doctor's hips jerk forward, his eyes close, and he groans deeply. His breaths are coming more quickly now, and he pushes back down against Jack, rutting with abandon, only a layer of soft linen remaining between them. Head hanging, his tongue comes out, traces Jack's jaw, the curve of his lips, then his mouth comes down on Jack's and he laps up the taste and heat of him like a man dying of thirst.

The intimacy of this, after everything in the last few days, pushes Jack closer to both orgasm and tears. They last only another minute or two, the Doctor coming with a shout, Jack chasing after a few moments more till he finds his release, his face wet with tears. He closes his eyes, doesn't want to see whatever will be on the Doctor's face when he raises his head.

Jack feels gentle fingertips brushing his face, the faint press of cool lips against his, then the Doctor vaults off the bed. Despite himself, Jack finds himself watching as pent up energy gets the better of the effervescent Time Lord. Looking thoroughly disheveled, he twists around trying to fish the ends of his braces from somewhere in the shoulders of his jacket, then gives it up as a bad job and shucks off the jacket, tossing it onto the bed. His trousers are still open and slipping down his lean legs, his shirt tails are flapping around him, he's lost the braces over his shoulders now, and surely at any moment he's going to go toppling to the floor.

Jack snorts, and once he's laughing he can't stop, he _can't stop_ , he's in love with a madman, he's hungry and thirsty and sticky and he's been _dead at the Doctor's hand_ , and where does it all stop? Maybe never, maybe it never will. He has a lot of future to sacrifice for the Doctor's dreams.

The Doctor is staring at him in bemusement. As Jack fails to either stop laughing or let him in on the joke, he frowns, turns, and makes his way to the bathroom with wounded dignity. “If you'd care to share with the class,” he mutters, disgruntled, hopping a bit as he tugs his trousers back up. He disappears into the bathroom, then reappears in short order with shirt tucked, trousers fastened, braces clipped, and hair combed. Jack is curled on his side now, hysterical laughter turned to shuddering breaths, and the Doctor tosses a wet flannel at him. He knows it is meant for the mess drying in his trousers and on his belly, but he holds it to his face first, trying to calm down, to find a center, to retain some hold on sanity, reality.

The Doctor is not helping.

“Well it's back to work for me, Jack, lots to do. Starting small like I said, there’s so much to do and I have _plans_ , isn’t that mad? I never have plans. If only she’ll take me where I want to go, one of these days. The things I’ll show you, you'll come with me won't you? I hope you're not planning on spending all your time dead.” He has returned to the bed now, braces up, jacket on, bow tie straightened, rubbing his hands and smiling at Jack. “We need to work on that, but don't think you're not helping, of course, couldn't do it without you!” Jack stares up at him, eyes wide and red, feeling blank and enervated, not sure yet what is going on. The Doctor bends down, threads his fingers through the back of Jack's hair, caresses his cheek with his thumb. Whispers against Jack's lips, “May I?”

Jack feels like he is in freefall, stomach turning queasily, lost without bearing. Not done then; he has never been that lucky. Closing his eyes, feeling the fractures spreading, he gives in to the inevitable. “Yes.”

It doesn't hurt quite as much this time, more careful or more willing or something else, Jack doesn't know. The Doctor's thumb is there, wiping away the tears, and he is swallowing Jack's cries, and some part of Jack is very concerned that he is mostly just relieved this is better than the first time, but like the rest of Jack, it is fading fast. He feels pressure like a rising storm against his mind, then nothing.

 


	12. Rivets along a seam of reality

This time, when Jack gasps back to life, he is alone in the Doctor's bedroom. For a few minutes he just breathes, propped up on his elbows, watching the doors warily. He remembers thinking, back when life still made sense, that he could provide what the Doctor needed if he had lost his moorings. But he is going to have to dig pilings and build a new pier from first principles, and possibly relight the stars, to get this ship safe to harbor.

And yet, leaving is no option at all.

Removing himself would remove the Doctor's access to this thing that sustains him, but even if he actually physically could leave, which he supposes he might in a limited sense, the Doctor can find him anywhere, anywhen. It isn't something he chooses to do often, but he certainly has done. His vortex manipulator is safely stored on Ophicche, sealed and bio locked against his return, and best if it stays there. Just as well he didn't get the chance to ask the Doctor to go back for it, those first few days; he might put it truly beyond Jack's retrieval, and those are not easy to replace. He can pilot the TARDIS in a pinch, but not without her cooperation, and he still doesn't understand her part in recent events. As before he can hear nothing but a background hum from her.

But even beyond the practical aspects, Jack’s trust in the Doctor is such that he is genuinely unsure whether the Time Lord might not see some real need for this. He can only continue on the path he has begun: remain, and continue to survive the Doctor's mad godhood, until they make it through. He won't run when the Doctor needs him, either to help as he claims, or, if this is true madness, to draw him back when he can.

He believes he will, because the Doctor has told him that he must believe. He believes he will, because otherwise the Doctor may destroy himself with this power he has said no one should ever have, and Jack can do anything, against that.

The Doctor has not returned, and Jack considers the extent to which he might have options. Confident in his freedom within the room, at least, he decides to start with a shower and clean clothes. Days-dried-on semen is not his favourite look. He peels the loose trousers off carefully, then gets up from the bed. It is then he sees a large glass of water and a bowl with three boiled eggs in it sitting on the table by the bed, and remembers how hungry he is; it has been a bit lost under everything else. One of the eggs disappears in two bites, then he leans his forehead against the wall. “I'm sure you can hear me, gorgeous, even though I can't hear you right now. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart thank you. We'll get through this, and we'll get him through this, I promise.” He lays his hand on the wall briefly, then downs the water, stuffs one more egg in his mouth and grabs the other, and heads to the bathroom.

He deposits the trousers in the laundry bin, finishes swallowing the egg and replaces it with the last one, and turns on the shower. The cuffs, he's not sure about. They have no seams and can't be pulled over his hands, so he hopes it won't damage them to get wet. In other circumstances they might be gifts Jack would enjoy, and he suspects, hopes, that despite his madness the Doctor means them as such in the here and now as well; a pledge of belonging, of safety, although if so there is a glaring exception to the safety clause. They are not acting as any sort of restraint on his movements. He has simply… been claimed.

“Captain Jack Harkness, if found please return to the Doctor,” he suggests wryly, then sighs, very conflicted. “Fine and all, except this time you've _lost your mind_ , Doctor.” Jack steps into the spray of water, and it is a long time before he moves again. When he does, it is only to turn around. He leans on the wall, closes his eyes, and lets the water carry away his thoughts.

When he finally steps out, he finds another set of the loose pajama-bottom style trousers set out for him, this time in blue. He stubbornly goes out to the Doctor's wardrobe and pulls open a drawer, finds more of them. They're all the TARDIS will offer him. “This isn't funny,” he complains. “Why are you helping him?” But there is still no response. He considers refusing to wear them at all, but discards the idea until he has a better idea what is going on. In the end, he picks black silk, never one to give up what pleasures he can find, and doesn't bother looking for shoes.

He heads, barefoot, shirtless, to the kitchen, hunts around, and assembles what he needs for a pot of spag bol. It's been a while but he is pretty sure he can remember how it goes. He is finding his mind drifting back to his long ago exile on Earth; it is the only other time he has died like this, the Vortex-driven spark of life drained from his body, just before he had found the Doctor again. It was a fairly awful period of his life, but there are some good memories there too.

The spag bol is almost done when Jack feels a sort of pressure change. He is not very psychic, for a human of his birth century or in general, but someone in the TARDIS is, and even so this is vastly outside his normal abilities. Then Jack recalls the impression of a rising storm just before his last death, and, well, _understands_ is certainly too strong a word, but knows that it is the Doctor, augmented. He sweeps in, and suddenly Jack has an armful of wet Time Lord.

“Doctor, what -” he gets out, and then the Doctor is kissing him deeply, hands holding his face, tongue invading his mouth, and just as suddenly he breaks away and laughs delightedly.

“It didn't take you as long to come back this time, that's great news, Jack! I can feel it when you do, you know, quite a strange sensation. Makes a splash!” He has taken hold of one of Jack's hands and is waving it around as he gestures. “The TARDIS found me this brilliant tangle, like one of those string puzzles only much better, it may take even me some time to work out. Something strange got involved in the timelines here, or will do, which is, hm. I'm not sure you're equipped for this, to be honest, very limited tenses even once you start time travel.” He makes a dismayed face, but apparently being human is still a forgivable offense. “I'd never even been to this galaxy before, much less this little planet; Ep, it's called. Ep, really. Doesn't roll off the tongue. Needs more syllables, epigram, epistolary, eponymous. It's fascinating, the timelines here are such a mess and just terrible things, Jack, terrible things. I'm going to put it right.” He finally lets go of Jack and sniffs, looks around. “What are you making?”

Cheered in spite of himself by the ebullient Time Lord, Jack pushes him away enough to divest him of his wet jacket. He likes rain, and wool coats, but somehow the smell of wet wool never grew on him. “Spag bol.” As soon as he hangs the jacket over a chair, the Doctor plasters himself to Jack's back, hands roaming over bare skin, nuzzling at the sensitive spot under his ear. “What's got into you?” Thinking about it, he has been unusually tactile since… well, _since._

“Mmmm,” the Doctor says into his neck. “Need it, need you. You anchor me. And you burn so bright, so warm.”

Jack considers this as he drains the pasta, makes up two plates, sets them on the table; all whilst the Doctor does a credible impression of a clinging vine. It is certainly a change from the first few days. He assumes this explains the lack of a shirt; probably not even a conscious decision on the Doctor's part. Nothing to lose, really, if he's going to stay and try to mend whatever broke here he might as well be thorough. Turning in the Doctor's arms, he brings his hands up to the sides of his face, fingers curling over his ears and down his neck, as much skin contact as he can manage, and kisses the Doctor slowly, softly, licking at his lips, into his mouth as it relaxes open in welcome. The Doctor's hands have stilled on his back and his eyes are hugely dilated, gold in their depths, when Jack pulls away, rests their foreheads together. “Are you alright, now? Only I'm really hungry, and this food won't eat itself.”

The Doctor swallows, goes briefly cross-eyed trying to focus on Jack's face, then nods and lets him go. “I'm alright. Thank you. For, for,” he trails off. He steps back, hooks a chair out from the table without looking, drops into it, and frowns at his plate. “What did you say this is?”

Jack joins him. “Spag bol. Spaghetti? Surely you've had it, you spent all that time with UNIT. Though, mine’s better.” He winds up a forkful, looks at it suspiciously. “Erm, I think. It's been a while.” Digging up ancient history for both of them, really.

“Didn't give it much thought, back then, really, I'm afraid. Just making time. So I just…” His attempts to wind it not working out, he tries grabbing a portion with his fork and biting off a mouthful. Jack tries very hard not to laugh at the face he makes, at least until he swallows the bite in his own mouth; then he gives in, trying to imitate the expression as he chortles. Spitting the mouthful into a napkin, the Doctor sounds ridiculously offended. “What are those little, there are _bits_ of stuff in it! I hate bits!”

Dryly, Jack suggests, “Flavor. Here, hold on.” He gets up, shaking his head, and fetches an odd little utensil he saw earlier; just a straight stick, with a bit of a hook on the end. Reaches over the Doctor's shoulder. “Grab a noodle, pull it out, knock the bits off, wind it up.” He demonstrates. “See if that's alright, and I'll make yours without the bits next time.” Whatever you'd call that; noodles with tomato sauce. It's like feeding a kid.

It turns out to be alright, and Jack enjoys the way the Doctor glances at him occasionally as if he thinks he might be a magician.

-+-+-+-

As the Doctor leads him back to the bedroom later, Jack decides to get a protest on record while he still can. “You killed me.” There, he managed to get it out this time. “Twice.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” the Doctor asks, glancing back at him and sounding surprised. Jack is startled into a dry laugh; not that it's funny. It's so him, and yet so very, very wrong.

“I, that’s… I don't even know how to answer that.” Jack sighs and rubs his face with his free hand. “It hurt. I didn't enjoy it. I don't actually go around dying as a hobby, Doctor.” He gets a sidelong, incredulous look for that one. Which is fair, maybe; the Doctor spent years putting _him_ back together when he broke. “That was… a special circumstance, and you know it. No, my point is, _you've_ always discouraged it.” He has finally remembered that the Doctor he has seen shattered by his deaths is the future Doctor; _discouraged_ is the best he can say about the past, inasmuch as he can clearly differentiate them at this point. “And I'm not going to claim you actually try not to interfere, but you say you do, and what you're doing now seems like an extreme about-face on both positions.” They have reached the bedroom now, and he tugs the errant Time Lord around to look at him. “I know death has you running scared; and gods, Doctor, I don't want you to die either. I’ll take every minute with you I can get. But I know what happened last time you took on a Fixed Point, too. All this, what you're asking of me, is it worth it?”

The Doctor drops his hand, reaches up to brush his forehead, cup his cheek. This face does earnestness so heartbreakingly, Jack is lost almost before his protest is fully voiced. He can do a great many things, but he cannot be the one who stops the Doctor from fighting his death. It is far too close to his own heart's desire. They will get through this, together; eventually things will be alright again.

“I wish I could show you what I see, Jack, in you, in the universe,” the Doctor says, and Jack wishes he could as well. “There are so many wrong things that just happen to be, and I can _fix_ them now, with you. I don't know yet how much of my own timeline I can change, but at the very least we needn’t sit back and wait for the end. Don’t be afraid, Jack. There's so much more I can do. Help me do it.”

It isn't really a request, but Jack nods, half-conceived plans for resistance forgotten. “You know I'll follow you anywhere.” The Doctor smiles. He tilts Jack's head and kisses him tenderly, hungrily, and as he is backed toward the bed, Jack feels the spark in him drawn up into an inferno.

-+-+-+-

A Time Lord with the borrowed power of the eternal dynamo inside Jack is a powerful being, Jack comes to understand, but on the scale of the cosmos is still limited. The Doctor no longer simply observes timelines, shifting events when necessary to correspond to some sort of preferred base state of reality; he edits them on the fly to his preferences, excises whole troublesome sections in one go, sets worlds and civilisations off on new courses. He is the Law of Time, embodied.

He starts to study Fixed Points, and how he can crack them open. From the rambling conversations Jack is treated to, scattered along his short days, he has the impression of popping rivets along a seam of reality. What happens when it opens, Jack doesn't know. The beings the Doctor interacts with regard him as a god, or a demon, and it doesn't bother him as it once would have. The Oncoming Storm sweeps everything from its path.

And in between, he comes home to Jack, changed but mostly recognizable, and Jack dies, and lives, and loves, and begins to forget why he thought this needed fixing at all.

 


	13. Perseverance

The TARDIS still won't take him where he wants to go. Well, that's not strictly true, but she absolutely refuses to go anywhere near his own timeline, even the part he hasn't done yet. She thinks it is breakable, and gives him an impression of a child gleefully stamping on an ant pile.

“That is unkind and untrue,” the Doctor retorts, sulkily. “And yes, that's the whole point; I'm _going_ to break it. I'm not going to die at some stupid lake on a rubbish little planet like clockwork just because someone _wrote it down_. And if I go,” he throws himself into a jumpseat dejectedly. “If I go, then It’s _my fault_ that River kills me, my fault she's in Stormcage. Speaking of things that need changing.” He runs his hands through his hair. “So - I'm not going.” The TARDIS is not best pleased with this plan but he doesn't care; she hardly wants to deliver him to his death, either. He hops to his feet, pulls some levers, checks the display and flicks a switch, then straightens his bow tie in a reflection from a bit of brass. “I'm not working on that absurd tangle you found me anymore, either. Take me here or find somewhere else more interesting.”

Throwing the lever to dematerialise, he waits to see if they end up anywhere better. He has been working on it, in the off-and-on manner that he is getting used to, sometimes taking a break, for months now, and it is just ridiculous. An entire galaxy caught up in it, little planet Ep at the centre; the centre of what exactly, he has not been able to determine quite yet. But it is frustrating and he's lonely and the days he spends waiting are rarely any good. He needs that glorious fire, and without it he wants his Jack, warm and sure and steady. If he could have them together it would be the best of all worlds.

But instead he has the heady days of walking as a god through Time, seeing all the swirling patterns of timelines stretching out to the edges of infinity, making of them what he will, stirring and shaping; and when it runs out, the time of cold discontent, of waiting. It takes Jack two days, nine hours, and sixteen minutes to revive, on average. The Doctor is not sure what causes the variation, but it has been as little as two days, two hours, and forty minutes, and as much as three days, one hour and twelve minutes, not counting the first time which was nearly an additional twelve hours. He can only hold onto his borrowed power for so long; the time to discomfort seems to be very slowly decreasing, in fact. It has to be used, and if he makes a large change he runs out sooner, and this time he was feeling daring and bent a Fixed Point out of all recognition. The backlash knocked him out, and he found himself juggling timelines when he came to, but he got it all mended. Practice, practice will do it. And when he knows all there is to know about Fixed Points, nothing will be too fragile to fix.

Perseverance, that’s a new thing. He loves new things.

But in the meanwhile, the waiting is hard. It has been a day already and he has at least six hours to go. It is, at least, an unmissable event; Jack’s timeline stretches out straight as a photon into infinity even when he is dead, but there is nothing to hold to when that burning life is gone from the body. When the Fact reasserts itself, it is a blazing light illuminating everything it touches, setting everything back to its proper place. It is a relief to the Doctor, after the cold, after the dizzying view of time. Even so, after a few hours of warmth and company, he gladly takes up the fire again.

-+-+-+-

He’s finally got a handle on this, just has to pull a few strings and it’s going to turn out like magic; if he were any hotter, he’d be on fire, and he’s _already_ done that. “Jack!” the Doctor yells, tired of waiting for him to finish the shower he insists on every time he revives. “Captain! To the bridge!” Why on Earth they called them bridges he doesn’t know. And Jack was never a captain of any navy he knows of, but he couldn’t care less at the moment. He smacks the side of the scanner display, hoping that will hurry it up.

Jack comes pelting in, towel on his head, tying his ridiculous trousers. He claims the TARDIS won't give him anything else; but they are convenient. And it's not like he goes adventuring lately. “What? What’s wrong?” He takes the stairs in three bounds and fetches up against the console, catching his breath.

Frowning, the Doctor peers at him. “No, nothing, why would you say that? Why does everyone always say that?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “I’m being _extremely_ clever here, Captain, and you should be watching.”

Bracing his hands and hanging his head, Jack sighs gustily, then straightens up and rubs his hair with the towel. “Yes, alright. Here I am.” He tosses the towel over a railing and walks to the Doctor’s shoulder.

“I told you about that big mess I’ve been working on, Ep, that mangled history, all their stars going out. It’s been maddening.” Jack makes a suspicious noise here, and the Doctor can hear _what a coincidence_ under his breath; whatever that means. “The TARDIS keeps bringing me back here, so I’ve had _her_ trying to make sense of it all. It’s fantastically recursive on a massive scale, but she’s got a trace on _something,_ or should do, _any moment now_.” He pokes some keys, flips a switch in case anything he does at this point will help, and smacks the scanner again.

Numbers and symbols scroll up, and whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t this. “Artron energy, off the charts, eleven-dimensional, wait, what? That can’t be right, redo that! That energy signature should _not_ be there.” He types furiously, scanning through data. It _is_ there, and nothing else useful at all; even the TARDIS can’t cut through the horrific muddle these fools have made of their own history.

“What is it?” He had nearly forgotten Jack was there, and he isn’t feeling quite as clever anymore.

“Just… an energy signature. Nothing else, I was hoping for an end to pull and unknot the whole thing, but… It’s from the War. The Time War. There is, will be, has been, a Type 92 weaponised TARDIS here.” He licks his lips, unaccountably nervous. Jack, of course, will appreciate this danger more than most, but surely it will only make him more determined to see this through. The Doctor turns his head to watch Jack from the corner of his eye. “A paradox machine.”

Jack inhales sharply, blanches. His fists clench at his sides. Then, confounding the Doctor’s expectations as is his habit, he steps forward and reaches to lay a hand on the central pillar. “Is she… alright?”

It is not a question that had occurred to the Doctor. He has the sudden, uncomfortable thought that there are a great many things about Jack he doesn’t understand, even when the experiences are shared. “She’s fine,” he opines brusquely, and wraps his arms around Jack, grounding himself for the first time today. “We’ll take care of it. It’s my responsibility; may take a little longer than I hoped, but I’ll fix it.” He lays his cheek against the back of Jack’s neck; the heat of him is always comforting, relaxing. Time for more work soon enough; time for distraction now. “You smell delicious, Captain.”

He can hear the smile in Jack’s voice. “Heard that one before. Fifty-first century pheromones. They don’t work on you.” But he relaxes back against the Doctor.

“No,” he agrees, smiling into Jack’s shoulder, sliding his hands down the flat plane of his belly. “But they do smell good.” As distractions go, it is quite successful.

-+-+-+-

It is the strangest sort of companionship the Doctor has ever had. He has had a robot dog, who wasn’t much for company, but this is stranger yet. He only sees Jack for a few hours every few days, but there is still distinctly someone else living here; the coffee, not that he minds coffee, the strange foods, the laundry, the shampoo in his shower, the body on his bed.

 _Living_ may be the wrong word, or at least imprecise. Inhabiting, perhaps.

Jack is patient with him when he clings, for the warmth, for the anchoring stability of him. He is kind when the Doctor is frustrated, when his plans fail, when he has been alone too long. Jack bears his tempers, his unkind words, the way he uses sex sometimes as a substitute for intimacy, as a quick way to assuage the loneliness. He believes the Doctor when he tells him this is right, this is necessary, and he lives on hope; for what, the Doctor doesn’t know and doesn’t ask, but he can see it. And he continues to endure the pain the Doctor causes him nearly without respite, again and again and again.

It is no great surprise when he starts to disappear into the background, a Jack-shaped fixture in the Doctor’s triumphant, tumultuous life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _It's thanks to[Time v.3.0](https://archiveofourown.org/works/471497) by Teyke there are paradox machines when I imagine the Time War. Brilliant read._


	14. Delaminating

Although Jack has not forgotten the terror of the day things changed, things are not awful. If he squints, maybe, if he forgets that the Doctor… he mostly does forget, he can't help it. _The Doctor kills me agonisingly every few hours_ is not something he can spend a lot of time thinking about if he wants to remain anything like sane. He thinks he has lived only ten or twenty percent as much time as the Doctor has, since, and he has no good idea what any of those numbers might be in any case. There is a count of deaths in the back of his head that he can't get to stop, but his confidence in it has been low since it passed forty.

Jack takes it as it comes. He has always had a gift for that, or maybe it is for accepting the inevitable. He counts it a success when the Doctor comes back to him sounding like the Doctor, when they can laugh together. He knows, distantly, that there is something maybe pathologically wrong with this, considering the situation, but the knowledge doesn't help him so he ignores it. Most days, things maybe break even; this mad god is, at least, not the vengeful god he once claimed he would be, though from scattered comments Jack has gathered that may be more the TARDIS’s doing than the Doctor’s.

He finds out what failure is the day the Doctor loses a planet to Reapers.

Jack revives to panic, as his initial gasp for air is prevented. He realises, as he is instinctively clawing at the obstruction, that it is the Doctor, who has him by the throat and is shaking him.

“- back, come back, come back!” he is chanting, so lost he doesn't notice immediately that Jack _has_. He lets go as Jack flails at him, startling backward with momentary horror on his face, then reaches again for Jack. Jack flinches, and scrambles back as best he can, hands and feet scrabbling at the bed, legs pinned under the Doctor.

Face crumpling, the frantic Time Lord collapses forward into Jack's lap, arms winding around his waist, begs, “Don't go, don't go, I'm sorry, don't go, _please,_ don't go.”

Appalled, Jack stares down at him, utterly at a loss. He doesn't go. He doesn't move, barely breathes. The Doctor's cheek is pressed to his belly and he is trembling, taking great gulping breaths, silent now that Jack has stopped fighting. There is a psychic storm beating around Jack, stronger than he can remember feeling it before. “Anchor,” the broken creature in his lap murmurs, finally. “You anchor me.”

Jack is far from understanding, but he knows that the Doctor is especially fond of skin contact when he talks about anchoring, so he relaxes, not a lot after _that_ awakening but enough to allow movement, and begins to unbutton the Doctor's shirt. It is awkward, the way the Doctor is curled up on him, but he manages everything but the collar and cuffs. “I'm not going anywhere,” he says quietly, warily. “Please sit up.” Tugs lightly at the Doctor's shoulders. The Doctor sits up, but doesn't meet Jack's eyes nor say anything else. Jack slips his braces from his shoulders, removes his bow tie, gently unbuttons collar and cuffs, pulls the shirt from his trousers and pushes it off. Lies back holding the Doctor skin to skin, but somehow he twists them over and Jack ends up on top, covering him.

The Doctor sighs, not in happiness but in relief, clutches Jack to him, and closes his eyes. “Jack,” he whispers, and falls silent. Baffled, unnerved, frightened both of and for the Time Lord he holds, Jack realises he has begun to get comfortable. It is not a luxury he can afford, living with a homicidal madman with a god complex.

Jack shifts around until he is as comfortable and safe as he can get, which isn’t very. He lies heavily on the Doctor, cheek to shoulder, arms pinning the Doctor’s so he cannot possibly reach Jack’s throat again, legs between the Doctor’s for leverage. His feet are hooked around Jack’s lower legs though, so that may be a draw. It is the best he can do for now.

But he’s not safe.

Six months before the plague hit Ophicche, a Doctor Jack had never seen came to him. Told him almost nothing. “You aren’t to mention this, Jack. But there’s a time coming you’ll need to know we make it through, and - surely there are convincing things I could have done rather than showing up here like this? It’s very much against my better judgement.” Arms folded, he glared at Jack as if it were his fault, somehow, which was certainly convincingly Doctor-ish. “Believe it down to your bones, Captain. I trust you. Get it right.”

Jack believes. They come through this, sane and without destroying the universe, as far as he knows. But living through it is not made easier for the knowledge.

-+-+-+-

Later, the Doctor tells Jack about the Reapers. How he had been deconstructing, delaminating, a Fixed Point, and the timelines got away from him, spinning away in dizzying violence, the Doctor reaching wildly to contain the damage but not able to save the epicentre. Still learning, he says defensively. With time breaking around him, he had needed something to hold to, he had needed Jack. The ramifications of being a living Fixed Point vis-à-vis the Doctor are still somewhat unclear to Jack, but he is apparently only minimally useful, dead. Considering it is the Doctor who keeps killing him, he files this information away as provisionally hopeful.

It is hard to find hope elsewhere, though. The Doctor seems to move on from this failure by drawing away, becoming more cold and focused. More often, Jack sees the Time Lord remaking reality, and less often the friend, the lover.

Sometimes being near Jack, touching him, seems to cause pain as it used to, and Jack thinks he is forgetting to see the man he cares for and seeing only the Fact, the still point burning blindingly bright. But he never loses the desire to reach out and touch it.

It is not always clear which of them gets hurt more, on those days.

-+-+-+-

The thick cuffs have come to be a comfort to Jack. He never gets a shirt - and he does appreciate that the TARDIS keeps the temperature appropriate to this although the Doctor prefers it cooler - but the cuffs are always there, and he feels a little bit protected. They are, he notices one day, the width of the Doctor's palms, as if he were always holding Jack. He has always liked cuffs, certainly much better than a collar if he must be claimed, and they are comfortable; he sometimes forgets and reaches for the vortex manipulator that he isn’t actually wearing. He hasn't asked the Doctor why, this time, but he knows how Jack feels about cuffs.

He has taken to rubbing them on his hip or knee when he's thinking, biting at them when he's frustrated or during sex, resting with his face pressed to one or the other of them. He would much rather lose the trousers than the cuffs. Which, yes, to be fair, he is slightly famous in certain locales for doing just that, but no, not for that reason.

He just feels a little safer with them on, in a world otherwise devoid of safety.

-+-+-+-

Once, the Doctor is gone for a week. It is the longest Jack has been alive, since. It takes him a bit more than two days to revive, each time, he has discovered by the simple expedient of finding a clock that shows the date in storage. He is sure that in no conceivable way is it the 5th of March, but it helps him keep track. Somewhere along the way it became important to him to know. Going willing into that good night cuts at least a day off it, he has gathered.

Jack is used to waking up without the Doctor, but he is usually back within a day. Jack is bored the second day, until he remembers _hobbies._ He finds the swimming pool the third day, and works out his anxiety doing laps. Falls asleep after, which he hasn't done in so long he is completely disorientated when he wakes. The fourth day, he tries to go after the Doctor. The TARDIS won't let him open the doors.

“Please,” he begs, increasingly frantic. “I need to go after him, you know the kind of trouble he gets into. He's been caught somewhere, or something's gone wrong and he needs me, please, let me go!”

She doesn't open the doors, but she relents and lets him hear her song again. The pain and sorrow in it is almost more than he can bear, and he realises she was protecting him, letting him carry hope for both of them. There is apology as well, for her part in this, and forgiveness, for his. With her assurances of the Doctor's continued safety, Jack subsides reluctantly into waiting. He rarely leaves the console room for the next two days. Routine maintenance is the same as it ever was, and has been badly neglected.

When the Doctor returns, he is covered in mud and dust and spatters of _something,_ but unharmed. After making sure of this, Jack yells at him, kisses him, takes the remains of his ruined clothes from him and gleefully bins them, leads him to the shower and carefully washes him, feeds him tea and puts him to bed. The Doctor watches him, mostly silently, through all of this, a gradually increasing smile turning up one corner of his mouth, tilting his head. As he is lying in bed, dark coverlet drawn up to pale face, damp hair spread across the pillow, he looks up. “Jack -”

“Go to sleep.”

The Doctor smiles, then. Lifts the edge of the coverlet. “Come here, Jack.” Jack does.

Relieved, and tired from his vigil, he falls asleep, but he doesn't wake up. Death spits him back out again three days later, alone. He never finds out what took the Doctor so long, but it doesn't happen again. He gets rid of the clock; it doesn’t help.

 


	15. Thrown to the flames

Perseverance has been the worst new idea yet, but he is so stuck in now he strongly suspects the only way out is through. He has been worrying at Fixed Points in this thrice-damned knot for a year, they're like staples in a ball of wool, or maybe adhesions in a wound, preventing sorting, preventing _healing_. It is far beyond healing, of course. It's not beyond sorting, not for him, not now, nothing is. But it is immensely annoying.

He had fancied himself the hammer at the forge, reshaping, remaking, but it feels more as though he is a sledgehammer lately, brute force destruction his only method. He thinks the Fixed Points are the key, but he needs a new approach. A more systematic one, that he might come to understand all there is to know about turning Time to a new course.

Leaving the misbegotten paradox-riddled galaxy behind, he begins to study simpler Fixed Points. He will return, of course. He leaves alone, for now, those made fixed by his own interaction and anything involving Earth; the TARDIS finally relented enough to let him near one, two months back, and he found the feel of it particularly vertiginous, sharp and precarious. He follows her guidance more now, and in return she takes him where he wants to go, for the most part.

-+-+-+-

“Jack!” The Doctor is calling as soon as he opens the doors to the TARDIS. “Jack?” He has been kept away for days, working at his latest Fixed Point, a groundquake and tsunami event that marked a shift in the economic landscape of an entire world. Walking amongst the people, he made no changes at all aside from his presence at first, simply observed; trying for surgical this time, no brute force needed. His bare presence is enough to shift events significantly, now, and as he wandered he saw the growing turmoil in the timelines. People flee from him as he has grown used to; Jack has told him he projects psychically with the Vortex burning in him, appearing as a great storm. It is useful, at times. His appearance prompted the coastal exodus in advance of the tsunami to begin earlier, and there were thousands fewer deaths. With that much change he had needed to shift only a few key timelines to crack the Fixed Point wide open. The geologic event, he can’t do much about; living beings, on the other hand, are infinitely manipulable.

He spent the next day, as he always has to, tidying the timelines, preventing any backlash, but he had badly pushed the limits of the time he could hold that power and collapsed before he could reach the TARDIS again. He really rather prefers jail to hospital, but no one ever _asks_ him.

Another day gone there, and he had felt Jack revive whilst he was still tidying. He tries not to be out so long, both because he drove Jack into a terrified frenzy when he was gone a week once - the TARDIS scolded him, and it was all very inconvenient - and because it is increasingly uncomfortable for him to be away from his anchor. He is dizzy and exhausted now, feeling hollowed out and singed and a little bit lost after watching the timelines shift and change for days.

So, where is Jack? He calls again as he stumbles on the stairs, continues on his path like sliding down a gravity well, falling into a whirlpool; he is seeking the centre. Finding himself at the door to the library, he thanks the TARDIS for making it a short walk and steps in. “Jack!” he demands, once again.

There is a snort, and then a dark head appears over the back of the nearby sofa. “Doctor?” He rubs his hand over his face and looks around, then vaults over the back of the sofa and reaches out to steady the Doctor. “What happened? You look awful.”

He waves away the concern, rests his hands on Jack's arms. “Nothing, complete success, just tired.” Scowls crossly at his Captain. “What are you doing in here?”

“Napping, I think?” Jack looks at the sofa, eyebrow raised quizzically. An imprint from one of his cuffs is stamped on his cheek. “Though I was reading, before that. You've been gone,” he adds, inanely.

“Of course I've been gone, and then I couldn't find you!” He should have been waiting in the console room; not that it is a habit of his, but the Doctor was _expecting_ him to be there. “You know I’ll want you immediately I’m back.” Jack nods apologetically, and, judging him temporarily steadied, circles around and takes his jacket from his shoulders, a strangely old-fashioned gesture from this man of the future; but then he has lived that old-fashioned time, stuck on the slow path all those years. He folds the jacket precisely and lays it over the sofa, moves on to the Doctor's braces and shirt. He is silent as he works, and the Doctor keeps a hand on him as he is able but doesn't assist, letting himself be taken care of. Jack has a positive talent for it, always watching his reactions, learning what he needs, though no prizes for perceptiveness today.

“There.” Jack pushes the shirt off him, folds it, and lays it next to his jacket, bow tie resting on top. “Come rest.”

Jack tries to draw the Doctor toward the sofa, but he resists; sets an arm about his Captain's waist and holds him close. “No, I need a shower first. Help me.” He leans heavily as they make their way out of the library.

Although he has been in hospital, he is far from rested; it is a state he only approaches asymptotically these days in any case, the way this work occupies his mind. After the shower he falls into bed and is asleep in moments, his anchor caught fast in his arms.

-+-+-+-

When the Doctor dreams, he dreams of fire. Of the Time War, of regeneration, of the Daleks’ weapons and the times he has nearly been thrown to the flames. The blazing Heart of the TARDIS in Rose and in him, and the consuming fire of the Torajii sun possessing him; Jack wakes him from those when he can, kicks off the covers and lets him hold on tight.

Fire is all he knows sometimes, and he swallows it down again and again until all he sees, all he feels is a whirling inferno, a vast shifting plane of flames surrounding him, his only safety the source at the centre. But that pole burns too, most furiously of all, and that unquenchable flame is all the world.

But some days, it’s just Jack; and Jack belongs to _him_.

 


	16. Letting go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This chapter contains non-explicit dubious consent._

Jack loses track of the deaths sometime after one hundred and thirteen. Not that he would place money on having reached one hundred and thirteen accurately, but it is the last time he thinks his count corresponded reasonably well to reality. The count in the back of his head gradually fades away after getting stuck in the one twenties.

“I've lost count,” he announces as the Doctor walks in. It is partly the high number, and partly the recent run of extremely short periods of time between deaths. He doesn't even always bother getting up anymore. Hasn't yet got to deciding, today.

The Time Lord pauses in reaching for him. “Of what?”

“Deaths,” Jack drawls laconically. Nope, not going to bother today either.

“Oh.” Helpfully, the Doctor offers, “It's been t-”

“Shut up. Just…” He's not sure anymore, of anything. “I don't want to know.” Staring at the ceiling, he realises he has reached a state of numb resignation; it's comfortable, good for the long term. There is a rather long silence, then he hears the Doctor move toward him again. Expecting his next death, he is surprised when the Time Lord sits down next to him on the bed, back against the headboard, and threads his fingers through Jack’s hair. Jack doesn’t look at him, even though he could now without moving his head.

“We can take a break, if you need to,” the Doctor suggests diffidently. “You are looking quite worn down.”

“I don’t want a _break_ ,” Jack says, a weary anger welling up to take the place of the resignation. “I want you to finish whatever the hell it is you’re doing and leave me alone.”

The Doctor’s hand stills in his hair, fingers clenching to pull Jack’s head around to look at him. Jack finds himself paralysed, caught between the practiced instinct to submit to this man and the impulse to fight. He suddenly wishes he had bothered to at least sit up today. “You don't mean that, Captain.” His voice is dangerous, smooth and cold. “You are _mine_. As long as I live, you won't be rid of me.” He pauses, then asks with detached curiosity, “Are you going to kill me?”

It feels like a kick to the gut, and Jack is left gasping. “Never,” he breathes, terrified by the small voice inside replying _maybe_. He meets the Doctor's eyes, finally, and the anger is gone as if it were never there. This has been happening lately, he gets upset over nothing and then the Doctor says something that straightens him out so quickly he gets whiplash. Something is wrong, it must be, but he doesn't know what it is anymore.

As Jack relaxes under his hand, the Doctor's stern expression warms to a smile. “Good, Captain. You're feeling neglected, I shouldn't wonder, I've been terribly busy lately. Not much longer and I'll be done sorting out this little mess, and we can spend more time together.” Keeping his grip in Jack's hair, he shifts down the bed until he can recline next to Jack. “But in the meanwhile,” he leans down and sets his lips against Jack's exposed throat, “I have a little time.” He sucks hard until Jack is sure there must be a mark left, then moves down and does it again.

Not at all sure this is what he wants to be doing, Jack is nonetheless unwilling to defy the Doctor again right now; and sex is at least not dying or reviving. It must be the grinding monotony that is getting him down, he thinks, after all it’s not the worst way he has died and it is very nearly the best way he has revived; never any emergency to deal with, no additional pain, warmth and showers and food and the Doctor. When has he ever needed more? He ignores the whispering traitorous voice that suggests _always_ , and pulls the Doctor closer.

-+-+-+-

It is easier to think when the deaths are not so closely spaced. Attempting to feel less like a prisoner, Jack tries to make himself useful, because it is clear the Doctor _needs_ someone to do for him these days; he doesn't eat, at least when Jack is alive, unless Jack sets food in front of him, and he hasn't been keeping up with maintenance on the TARDIS at all. Jack is not sure what the Time Lord's life is like otherwise; lonely, probably, when he has only a corpse to share his bed with. For Jack himself, it has been a quick descent into a life of dissociating unpredictability.

When his keeper has still not appeared by the time he has had his morning shower and a fairly leisurely breakfast one day, Jack makes tea, sets a couple biscuits on the saucer, and goes looking. It's not a long search; his quarry is hunched over the console, typing intermittently, peering at the results on the display. Jack slides the tea into an empty flat space. “Made you tea,” he comments, and is ignored. It's not like he actually expects basic courtesy anymore, but a little effort goes a long way when it is just the two of them stuck here together. He turns and leans against the console. “Some people have the courtesy to say thank you.”

“Don't need tea,” the Doctor bites out impatiently, without looking away from his task. He is scowling in concentration, fingers flashing on the keyboard. Jack can't read anything but the occasional number on the screen.

He can feel his temper fraying, but tries once more. “Jammy dodger then? I'm trying to help, Doctor.”

“Well if you were a little less _pretty_ and a little more help with what I'm _actually working on_ -”

“You haven’t minded the prettiness,” Jack returns darkly, maybe bitterly amused or maybe resentful, it's hard to tell. “And a little more help? _More?_ What more do you want of me?” Yelling incredulously, he flings his arms out; so much for temper. “What more is there than dying for you _every fucking day?_ ” He is pushing his luck and he doesn't _care_ , what more can he give, how much more can he tear himself to pieces in the name of love and loyalty?

The Doctor is staring at him angrily, brows drawn down and eyes shadowed, mouth opening for some reply, but as Jack watches the hardness in his eyes crumbles away and he looks down. He presses his fingers to his forehead. “Yes, yes you're right, Jack. Of course you're right. I'm sorry. Thank you for the tea.” It sounds like a dismissal but Jack doesn't want to go.

“All you see when you look at me is a ghost, anymore, Doctor,” he accuses. “But I’m real. I’m here. I’m doing this _for you_ , and if you could manage to treat me like a person instead of a, a _pet_ , or some kind of robot, every once in a while, it would go a long way.”

Letting his hands fall, the Doctor straightens and steps toward Jack. His eyes flicker across his face, and he says nothing for a long moment. Then his right hand comes up to gently frame Jack's face, and one corner of his mouth tips up. “You, Jack Harkness, are no ghost. You are bright and blazing and gloriously alive, one of the marvels of the universe. And you are, as usual, correct, and I apologise. I should not be taking out my frustration on you.” He leans in and Jack is treated to an achingly tender kiss, lips moving softly on his, tongue tasting his mouth with none of its accustomed forcefulness. Closing his eyes, Jack feels his heart break a little more, because how is this still left to them, after everything? It is more than he can stand right now, and he carefully pulls away, takes a step back.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” he asks. The Doctor's eyes are sad, but there is nothing he can do about that right now.

“Not right now, Jack, but thank you. I… had better keep working on this a while longer.”

Jack nods, turns, and flees at a walk; he hears the click of a teacup being lifted as he reaches the top of the stairs.

-+-+-+-

For a while, it’s better. Sometimes, the Doctor even brings him gifts from wherever he has been. Jack never leaves the TARDIS; even on good days the Doctor doesn't trust him with physical freedom. He wouldn't go anywhere, but some of his comments in past have clearly worried his keeper. They will make it through this, someday. He doesn't know how, he can no longer reconcile his memories with his current reality, but still he remembers that it is sure to happen; he is firmly settled into endurance at this point. And then… he has no definite plans. He will find somewhere to hide away for a long, long time. Inside a small black hole, perhaps; that should get him clear of a significant portion of the universe.

He is sitting in an open garden that reminds him of the storm-swept high plateaus of Ophicche today, trying to play an odd round flute made for more appendages than he has fingers that the Doctor brought him recently, when his keeper finds him.

“Jack!” he exclaims happily. “There you are.” Jack lays down his flute as the Doctor settles next to him on the stone ridge and wraps his arm around Jack's waist. There has been more of that again, lately, constant affectionate gestures that let the Doctor be in skin contact with Jack. He accepts it, of course, it is still comforting to be held, but it has been so hard lately to reciprocate, or even want to; more and more it feels like he uses up all his motivation for the day just getting up to shower. Everything is fading to numbness, everything but the trust that is his firm foundation and the belief that his proper place is here, at the Doctor’s side. What else is there, what else has there ever been?

Jack lets his head fall to his keeper’s shoulder and rests there, letting go of everything but here and now.

 


	17. And gets back up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This is the darkest this story gets, so please observe all the warnings for the work. Explicit if brief non-con, attempted suicide, and a lot of deaths._

If the Doctor has returned by the time Jack revives, he is touching Jack when it happens. He has told Jack it is as if all the universe convulses, then stabilizes again, wheeling in all its great order and chaos around the stable centre that is Jack. Sometimes he looks like a man who has seen God; sometimes he is just impatient. Today he is naked, propped on his elbow, left leg thrown casually over Jack's thigh, rubbing lazily against Jack's hip. His naked hip, he realises, which is not how it was last time he checked. Always disconcerting, these jumps in consciousness. The slow roil of thunderclouds fills the room.

“You should learn some more tricks, Captain. You can have the best trick in the universe, and this is definitely a strong contender, but it still gets boring without some variety in your repertoire.”

“I'm not a dog.” But he is in trouble; the Doctor is dangerous in this mood. He calls Jack _Captain_ when he is looking for the part of him that follows orders, that will follow the Doctor to hell and back, no questions asked. The part, Jack supposes, that rolls over and shows its belly. He notices next that his hands are restrained above his head, and raises his arms to see; his cuffs have been stuck to each other, but are not attached to anything. He pulls at them, not expecting much, and is not disappointed.

“No,” says the Doctor, and Jack lies still. “Roll over, Captain.” He smirks at Jack, who glares at him.

“No,” Jack says, brave or stupid. “I'm not your dog.”

The Doctor frowns at him like he doesn't understand. Moves his leg off Jack and kneels up beside him, erection bobbing. “You're _mine_. Dog, human, Fact of nature, what does it matter?” It is one of _those_ days, then; when Jack is a possession, not a person. “Mine. Roll over.” He shoves Jack's hip and shoulder, and over he goes. Reaching up to the cuffs, the Doctor unsticks them, twists Jack's arms around behind his back, and reattaches them just as firmly. Gives a solid tug at Jack's wrists. “On your knees, Captain.”

It’s not the first time the Time Lord has been unwilling to take _no_ for an answer; it is a rare day that Jack truly has that option, but he is used to that. Nor is it the first time he has restrained Jack, far from it, but it has usually been whilst he’s conscious. And although Jack rarely protests, it’s not even the first time the Doctor has utterly ignored him when he does. Somehow without being at all different, it is all wrong today; the last straw, he supposes, probably inevitable they should reach it someday. He has options here, but none of them are good. The knowledge that the Doctor won't hear his refusal robs him of the ability to give willing surrender, not that he wants to right now, but neither does he truly want to test his ability to injure his keeper. Stomach rolling queasily, Jack lets himself be hauled up, then buries his face in the bed. Maybe he'll pass out.

Moving around behind him, the Doctor pushes his knees apart. He still holds Jack's wrists, his cuffs, for leverage. Jack hears the pop of a cap, the slick sound of lube being applied, then the Doctor is shoving inside him. There is no pain, it's not like he didn't know what was coming, but even if the sensations are pleasurable in other contexts, no amount of pleasure could erase the betrayal he feels. The Doctor gave him these cuffs. If they meant anything like the safety he has thought, he has fooled himself into thinking, they did, the Doctor should be the source of it. But using the cuffs like this, to reduce him to a possession, to nothing at all, it is suddenly clear that if he ever had meant them that way... he lied, he lied, he _lied._

Jack fails to pass out. When the Doctor is done, he leaves Jack lying on the bed, turned on his side, cuffs still fastened, shoulders aching badly. “Back to work, Captain,” he says cheerfully, “just dropped by to see you.” _Fuck you, then kill you_ , translates Jack. He brushes his fingers through Jack's hair in a terribly gentle caress, leans over, and asks, as he unfailingly does, “May I?”

Wishing he had never made that request, Jack nods, and swallows the pain down whole.

He revives, still feeling the emptiness in his chest, still restrained, lying in a mess on the Doctor's bed. It's just as bad when nothing changes, it turns out. All he had had left to him was trust, battered and bruised as it was, and now he is crumbling away around the edges. He finds what solace he can in the TARDIS's song, and sinks into memories of happier times.

-+-+-+-

Some days, Jack can't remember why he ever thought he could help. He remembers being certain, absolutely convinced that he and the Doctor would be alright in the end, but he searches his memory desperately and can't find a reason. Isn't even sure why he stayed with the Doctor after leaving Ophicche, because there was clearly something wrong with him and it's not like he owed him anything. It was nice to know he was still knocking around, but he had almost never been there when Jack needed him, and after not seeing him for three hundred years, why would he think he had to stay and fix him? Sometimes he thinks the only way to fix him is to kill him, and wonders if he could.

Other days, he remembers thinking this and is nearly catatonic with fear. The Doctor told him they make it through. But the Doctor has also told him that time can be rewritten, and if he fails? He won't remember that future Doctor, because he will never have come, dead at Jack's hand.

-+-+-+-

Once, Jack revives face down with the Doctor's cock in his arse, which, he thinks, answers _that_ question. The Doctor is gasping in pain, and pulls out as soon as the muscle spasms that go along with revival are over, which, Jack hopes, answers the Doctor's question. Whatever it was.

It's not that he cares much, at this point; but it doesn't happen again. At least not the during revival part.

-+-+-+-

One otherwise undifferentiated day, Jack goes a bit mad. He takes a kitchen knife to his cuffs, which works well enough. He cuts them off, none too carefully, then cuts them again, and again, and again.

When the Doctor finds him, they have been reduced to a pile of scraps, scattered with blood from the cuts on his wrists which are already partially healed.

“Oh, Jack.” He sounds terribly disappointed, and without the anger to sustain him, Jack is crushed. He kneels on the floor, waits. “Give me your hands.” His keeper gently cleans away the blood, then sits at the table and painstakingly reassembles the cuffs as Jack continues waiting, knelt behind him on the floor. It takes nearly an hour; he talks to himself as he works, but not to Jack. When he finishes, he reaches out silently, and Jack gives him his hands. The Doctor replaces the cuffs on Jack's wrists, seals the last cuts, and they are whole again. He watches Jack.

“I'm sorry,” Jack says miserably, no other options conceivable now. “I won't do it again.”

“See that you don't,” replies the Doctor, and leaves.

-+-+-+-

As Jack is losing the Doctor, the Doctor is, in a very literal way, clinging to him more strongly than before. He seems to need the anchoring effect of the Fact more, and more often, even as he forgets that it is embodied in a man who loved the man he was. He is more often there when Jack revives, sitting propped up in the bed reading, his fingers entwined with Jack's or resting on his chest or shoulder. He doesn't leave as soon, talking to Jack about his study of Fixed Points, how he is starting to get everything here back in order, that the civilization will not rip itself apart along with half its stars in a cataclysm touched off by the leftovers of the Time War.

He is touching Jack constantly, and wishing he didn't spend so much time dead. And then he's killing him again, and Jack is past caring, he just can't anymore, he can't, he can’t.

-+-+-+-

The Doctor decides to pit Fact against Fixed Point directly. There is to be an assassination, he says, that sparks a war of genocide, and he won't have it; he sends Jack out to be assassinated instead. It is the first time he has been out of the TARDIS, _since_ , which is the only word remaining to him to describe the time that has elapsed.

Jack drinks the poison, and gets back up.

He takes the knife, ready as backup, and gets back up.

He takes the bullet from the sniper, as he appears shortly after, not dead, and revives to see someone standing over him. She nudges him with her boot, and he gives her a death's-head grin. He gets up from those bullets too. Jack doesn't know how the Doctor has convinced the universe to take him as a substitute, but it seems to have worked.

A vehicle runs him down. He's shot again, and revives underwater, hands tied and feet weighted. That one results in a few more deaths, in quick succession and mercifully decreasing clarity of memory, until he is retrieved by the Doctor. He can usually work his way out of rope restraints, but these swelled too quickly in the water.

Jack can feel Time breaking around him. He suffers increasingly unlikely deaths over the day as reality convulses, from gutting himself accidentally to being mauled by an escaped xenobiological specimen, until he revives to find himself confronted, in the seat of government of the polity of Pesh on the planet Cous’Ep, with a Reaper. This, he suspects, is what the Doctor wants to observe. At the moment, exhausted, suffering phantom pain from too many deaths, and unable to summon any hint of hope, annihilation is all he desires.

Jack falls to his knees, and opens his arms to oblivion.

The Reaper touches him, and vanishes.

Crying out, _no_ or _fuck_ or maybe not words at all, Jack pounds the floor with his fists in despair. He feels the world shatter.

 


	18. What must be remade

At first the Doctor is effusive, going on about the results of the experiment and the effects on the timelines and lack of effects on Jack, but as Jack follows him back to the TARDIS, entirely unresponsive, he gradually runs down. He stops and turns to Jack, catches his hand and twines their fingers together. “Jack?” His expression is abruptly more serious, concerned. “I'm sorry, Jack, I didn't think… I didn't think. Of you. Of course there were effects on you.” He raises his left hand tentatively toward Jack's face, strokes his hair. “There was a time I wouldn't have forgotten that. Let me make it up to you?”

Jack feels a tiny spark of hope rekindled, and it is more painful than all the deaths combined.

In his room in the TARDIS, the Doctor strips him and washes him gently, then dresses him in another pair of loose white trousers. He always picks white. Leads Jack to the kitchen, and talks to him whilst he makes bacon toasties; just because they're disgusting, he tells Jack, doesn't mean he has forgotten how to cook. Jack is not sure it counts as cooking, and after a moment's consideration, tells him so. Why sit silently once his mind starts providing commentary again?

His keeper looks delighted at his comment. “Making food,” he says, “it's cooking!”

Finding he has nothing else to say, Jack returns to silence.

He sleeps, and wakes, and it doesn't help.

They take a break from unwinding Time. The Doctor takes Jack to see crystal cliffs, colliding stars, triumphs of social and mechanical engineering across the universe. They step out into a meadow of blue-green approximately-grass high up on a mountainside, watch a small white sun set and sharp shadows fall. The stars here, the Doctor tells Jack, are very similar to those which were visible from lost Gallifrey. They lie there together in the growing darkness, the Doctor pointing out slightly distorted constellations. As the Doctor tenderly makes love to him on the soft grass, Jack stares dry-eyed at the stars.

It is hard, so much harder than he ever expected, to stay sane when loved by a madman.

He doesn't know, anymore, how to measure his success, or his failure.

-+-+-+-

Jack had wanted oblivion, and his last, best hope for oblivion had rejected him. In that moment, he had desired, nearly expected, nothing else, and the shock of his continued existence is slow to wear off. What the Doctor saw in him there, Jack doesn't know, but he is more careful of him. The time off from dying is nice, maybe, but Jack is too numb to enjoy the travel, or even really understand why he's not dying. Why he is being denied even the small taste that is all he will ever get of that emptiness beyond. He is relieved when life and death return to normal.

After the travel, the Doctor keeps him closer than before. It's not true, could never be true after he took the first step along this course, that Jack's pain or sanity could weigh more heavily than the Time Lord's determination to steer the universe aright, but it is heavy enough to bend his path. Jack sometimes leaves the TARDIS with him, following where he leads, remembering another time when that was his life. The Doctor seems more comfortable, safer, the days Jack spends kneeling at his side, in easy reach. Jack knows better than to trust a Time Lord who seems _safe,_ but not everyone they meet does.

When the Doctor wishes Jack to die, he does it with relief; when he lives again, he waits.

He had fooled himself into thinking his cuffs represented a kind of safety, a touchstone as his world descended into madness; but that trust was broken, and yet he wears them. Would not, now, choose to remove them. From his current vantage, he understands that they are simply a part of him, in the here and now, the signs of a bond that goes soul-deep: where the Doctor goes, there he follows. He is at peace again, in this.

Jack had wanted oblivion, and oblivion had rejected him yet again. It is a long, slow climb, back from that place.

-+-+-+-

Jack realises one day that his timeline has stabilised, since the aborted dance with the Reaper. He no longer has days he can't remember meetings in the Doctor's future, days of complete hopelessness. But after living without, hope is remarkably painful as well, and he doesn't think he can sustain the effort of _belief_ at all yet.

He can and does feel relief, though. So much, sometimes, that it starts to resemble happiness. There is never less pain, but there is always the Doctor, and there has been so much pain in Jack's life that it is hard to care anymore; it seems like a fair enough trade.

If he could feel concern, Jack suspects he would feel it for the Doctor. It will probably come soon. His need for Jack seems to be increasing; Jack's days have been getting longer, lately. The Doctor can't really be in contact with him any greater percentage of Jack's time, so his only option is for Jack to be alive a greater percentage of the Doctor's time. When Jack revives, the Doctor is there. Sometimes he talks, occasionally there is sex, but most often he just holds Jack, the anchor in the whirling maelstrom of timelines he tries to master. Jack is willing when he's not forced, when little is asked of him, and the Doctor is careful with him, most careful in these first minutes of life. He has not woken up restrained again, which he appreciates although it was not the problem. His keeper gets him up, takes him to the shower, comes in with him or not as Jack prefers. He sets out clean clothes - though he still always chooses white - then leaves to put on tea and coffee, letting Jack come after him in his own time.

At first Jack followed orders, could have done none of these things on his own; now he follows routine, and he can feel it becoming preference.

He doesn't know how to measure his time, anymore, has long since destroyed any clocks he found. He has been calling it a day, in between deaths, though he thinks it has rarely been more than eight hours. But gradually the time is stretching longer, as the Doctor can't bear to be without him again _quite_ yet. It feels, as it often has, that he is no longer firmly grounded in time.

Outside of immediate issues, Jack doesn't think of much. It is a mental cocoon, an internal oblivion to substitute for all he can never have, and he drifts there, thoughts muffled and memories dimmed, until he is healed enough to live again. He is content to kneel at the Doctor's side, to catch glimpses of the worlds he has made, is making. He is content to be used to remake what must be remade. He is content to follow the Doctor.

 


	19. Only the living

For all he has spent years learning how to break Fixed Points, the Doctor had not expected to break Jack. Once the elation of _winning_ , against the Reaper, against Time, wears off, the signs are unmistakable. He has experience with broken Jack. Truly, he had not meant to cause it himself; it is quite a lot of trouble and having someone around to take care of him every few days has been very satisfactory. But he knows what to do. Jack needs someone to take charge of him. The Doctor can do this, maybe is the only one in the universe who truly can. He gets Jack clean and dressed, bright white trousers for his bright living flame, and feeds him awful food - Jack doesn’t think it’s awful, of course, that would rather defeat the purpose - and then puts him to bed, to sleep.

“Why aren’t you killing me?” Jack is watching him from one eye, dully, clearly unconcerned at the prospect. Broken, for sure, not that he has previously been _concerned_ as a rule.

Smoothing a hand over his forehead, the Doctor sits next him, legs stretched out, shoulders propped on the headboard. “Stand down, Captain,” he says gently. “Rest now.”

The open eye falls closed and Jack's body relaxes, surrendering to sleep as he has not surrendered to the Doctor in years. His breath trickles out of him like the last sigh of a dead man. The Doctor feels his hearts stutter, his hand involuntarily clutches at the hair underneath it, and he doesn't breathe himself until he sees Jack's chest rise again. He has caused this man's death hundreds of times, but somehow the thought, brief as it is, that his indomitable Captain might lose the will to live so completely that he actually ceases to do so is intolerable to him.

-+-+-+-

Jack sleeps without waking for six days, more like a healing coma than sleep. On the first day, the Doctor continues his supervision of timelines on Cous’Ep, very pleased with the results aside from Jack’s indisposition. It is better than usual, in fact, after a major change like this, because Jack is alive, his anchor intact and reachable. The Doctor contributed very little beyond a guiding will for this clash of Fixed Points, holding onto a bare minimum of his borrowed power waiting for Jack to revive; just enough to nail the timelines down after they face his Fact. It has been days now since he last held the expansive spark of Jack's life, but he finds he can't bring himself to take it after that moment of inexplicable hearts-stopping fear.

On the second day, he sleeps as well, curled around Jack's unresponsive but comfortingly warm and alive body.

He is bored on the third day, more bored than he can remember being in… than he can remember being, full stop. His comfortable routine, broken to bits, just to spend the time _waiting_. He re-alphabetizes the poetry section of the library, and then the temporal mechanics books as well. He swims laps, and cleans the encapsulation grid by hand which takes hours. He shines all the brass in the console room, including the ceiling, and wishes Jack were there to help or laugh at him; he would gladly take either. He tries to get the coffee machine to make him an acceptable cappuccino, but it's no use, maybe he can pop around and just… buy a new one. “I'm the Doctor,” he tries out, “I buy gadgets at Tesco now.” It's rubbish. He spends a fascinating hour lost in the storeroom on the third level behind the stairs to the left.

On the fourth day, he realises he has seen Jack do this before, and remembers that the reason he didn't want to break his Captain is not that it's _inconvenient_ ; it's that it's _Jack_. He feels suddenly out of step, he has lost the beat of the purpose that has been driving him for years. Once upon a time he promised to take care of Jack, and that has long fallen by the wayside. “Jack,” he whispers, lying next to him in bed, as he finds himself doing more and more. “My Jack. Wake up, please, and I'll do better. I'll take care of you.” But his bright and brilliant star still sleeps.

He cooks on the fifth day, absolutely certain that his Captain will be waking at any minute, ravenous and mouthy and full of life. He has the TARDIS put the bedroom next to the kitchen so he can pop his head in and check on Jack at every spare moment. It is terribly disappointing when he is left with all the washing up and no one to eat his food with. He doesn't even like most of it.

On the sixth day, he visits the Cloister room. It has been a long time since he has come here for peace, but he is out of ideas. He spends an hour and a half there, trying to calm the churning in his gut amid the old stone columns and climbing greenery to little avail; then returns to Jack, to sit by him and read. The Doctor is there when he wakes, neither ravenous nor mouthy, and full of life only on a technicality. He is going to have to do perseverance again, the Doctor realises, to rebuild what he broke. Holding Jack close against him, barely more responsive now than before he woke, he remembers once again that when it is important enough, there is nothing he can't do.

For a week, the Doctor tries to draw Jack out with the sights of the universe, and, well, a _little bit_ of running for their lives, but he is pretty sure Jack enjoys that, usually, despite occasional complaints. Then he realises that Jack already knows the universe, and tries to give him some of his own history, his own self, which is currency he rarely employs. This, to his surprise, seems to drive Jack further into his deep silence, and the Doctor realises that although his Captain has awoken he has not returned to him, and until he inhabits his own mind again he cannot be drawn out by any means. It is not the same as last time, but the parallels are there. The Doctor returns them to the life Jack has grown used to, familiarity and routine the most solid handholds he can offer. Jack seems relieved when the Doctor tells him the travel is over, a tension he hadn’t noticed draining out as he relaxes against the Doctor’s side where they lie in bed. Caught between concern and relief of his own, the Doctor is surprised when Jack speaks.

“What are you waiting for?” His voice is rough from disuse, he speaks so little recently.

“What?”

“Go on,” Jack urges, “I’ve been waiting. Kill me.” The weary hope in his voice is eviscerating, a dagger between the Doctor’s hearts, but it is also more than he can resist. The yearning, the need to touch that eternal flame, intensifies in him with every passing hour, and he doesn't know how much longer he could have held out even without the invitation.

“I - Jack, I'm… Jack?” But he has closed his eyes, shutting out the world that asks too much of him, Doctor included. “I'm sorry,” he whispers as he wipes away his Captain's silent tears. “I'll take care of you.”

Then the golden fire is expanding, rushing through him, and all Time and the Universe is there, and after three weeks without it is almost more than he can take in but he couldn't stop now even if he remembered why he should. It whirls around him and he's lost, can barely find himself, finally catches hold of that dim, straight thread that leads him back to Jack, and to himself, wrapped around that thread like a strangling vine.

He is burning, a blazing comet of deliverance, of destruction, of judgement, and he throws his head back and laughs as his orbit flings him fast and furious out among the stars.

-+-+-+-

The Doctor does the best he can, in between. He is there when Jack revives, without fail; two days for the Universe, one day for Jack. His average time to revival has decreased to two days, three hours, and twenty two minutes since he slept. Holds him, talks to him, always touching at first because he needs it, but he doesn't think Jack minds. Makes sure he gets up for a shower because that's how Jack likes it, when he likes things; makes him coffee, and makes him drink it, at first. Eventually Jack starts following this routine on his own, and comes to sit in the console room after, listening and then taking up some of the routine maintenance the Doctor has neglected. If the day's work with timelines is uncompleted when he returns for Jack, they go together, later. Jack watches him sometimes with silent confusion, not sure what to make of this new behavior; he suspects Jack doesn’t realize he was unconscious for six days. He doesn't tell him. It is done, and Jack doesn't need anything else to worry about.

At first it seems like a terribly slow recovery, until the Doctor remembers that only the living can heal.

And as the months go by, the Doctor finds his orbit slowing, needs more of Jack in between the times of heady godhood. As he carves Time into new shapes, he starts to realize that it never quite _settles;_ he has rousted it from its comfortable path, and as often as he has assured others that Time is self-correcting, he is now coming to understand that in an uncomfortably visceral way. It takes a constant effort of maintenance from him, and the strain is growing.

The first time Jack says _no_ to one of his food choices, the Doctor is so pleased he accidentally drives him back into silence with an overwhelming array of alternate choices; he resolves to tone it down. So when Jack appears in the console room one morning wearing blue trousers instead of the white the Doctor always sets out for him, he is quietly elated and makes no comment at all.

 


	20. Not doing a very good job of it

Sick of wearing white, Jack has been making increasingly daring choices for his trousers in the last few days, and he is starting to wonder if the TARDIS will conspire with him sufficiently to provide some hideous floral print, or maybe tartan. She is always there now, singing to him, undemanding companion. Yesterday was bright purple, almost fucsia, wool blend. Today, vivid saffron silk. The Doctor had rolled his eyes and commented on colourblind apes, yesterday. Jack has seen his wardrobe, though, and most of his past incarnations, and ignored him. The day before yesterday was a fantastic chartreuse synth-suede that the Doctor took one look at and covered his eyes, shaking his head. He had refused to take Jack out with him; they had an image to maintain, he said. Jack had refused to change, with basically the same argument. But he had backed off _slightly_ on the daring, subsequently.

Now he steps into the console room, and the Doctor peers cautiously around the central column like he is afraid of what he might see. But his eyes light up and he steps eagerly to the base of the stairs to look up at Jack.

“Why didn't I think of that! That's perfect, Jack, my Jack, that's just the colour.” He reaches out for Jack, who comes to him; he is used to the constant touching. “You burn so bright,” the Doctor says against his shoulder, standing a step below, running his palms firmly from Jack's hips, up his flanks, curling around to his spine and over his shoulders, as if describing the path of the living flame he sees in Jack.

Suddenly it's too much, he can take touching, he can take fucking, but he can't take the Doctor making love to him again like he did in that blue-green meadow, not yet, and it feels like that's where this is headed. He rips himself out of the Doctor's arms and flees, his keeper calling after him.

-+-+-+-

Jack loses himself in one of the gardens in the TARDIS, the one without paths under a dense canopy, wildly flowering vines climbing the trees and the smell of rain always in the air. He could belong to one of the vines himself, bright saffron providing unlikely camouflage here. He wanders, unsettled, unable to articulate his thoughts to himself.

It seems like hours later when the Doctor finds him; Jack's sense of time is all but gone now, but it has certainly been much longer than he was expecting. The TARDIS sounds a bit smug. The Time Lord looks drawn tight, though a little of the tension leaves him as he looks Jack over and finds him unharmed. It probably means something important, Jack thinks, that the Doctor doesn't immediately come to touch him, but he's not sure what.

“I'm sorry,” the Doctor tries, clearly not sure why. “I don't… You can wear what you like, it all looks good on you, or, well, not, but I do like that colour, Jack, I know I did something wrong but please, can I touch you?” It comes out all in a rush at the end, and Jack still feels raw but he takes the Doctor's hand and settles him at the base of a tree, then sits between his legs and leans back, his temple to the Doctor's cheek. He takes the Doctor's hands in his and tucks his arms under his own, and they are silent. The Doctor breathes, just breathes, fingers twitching slightly against Jack's chest but otherwise still, and Jack remembers the man he knew long ago and knows this is _wrong_. This is more wrong than the detached breaker and remaker of worlds of before, somehow; this is the Doctor utterly at war with himself, every impulse embattled.

Jack waits, because he has all the time in the universe, even if maybe that's not a lot, the way the Doctor is headed. He hears water dripping somewhere, smells rain and wet earth; or whatever dirt is called poetically, where these plants originate. Feels oddly as though he is waking up, his sense of self sharpening and thoughts running more smoothly than they have done since well before the universe itself declined to correct his mistaken existence. Maybe since the first time the Doctor killed him; that thought has been worn smooth by time and repetition until it no longer causes the discontinuity in his thinking it used to. He is rediscovering concern now, but also resentment, for this desperate need he fulfills, has no real choice in fulfilling. There is bitterness, for his own unending nature and the things it makes possible, and anger, that he is so bound to this man by ties of his own making. And then, as he continues waiting, the Doctor like a coiled spring at his back, tense and still, he rediscovers fear. He had thought the Doctor fallen into madness long ago, even before the first time he saw his eyes burning with Jack's stolen life. But maybe that was only a Time Lord, one step to the left, drunk on power and lacking any possible moderating influence. Past understanding, for Jack, but perhaps not mad. But the being behind him, waging war in his own mind for what stakes Jack can guess, may be headed there truly now.

He breaks the silence. “You're tearing yourself apart.”

The Doctor swallows, and breathes, and his hands clench. Jack gently coaxes them back open with his thumbs, then lays them flat against his collarbones, anchoring the Time Lord to the here and now. He clings like a drowning man.

“Jack, I'm,” he swallows again, turns his face away. “It's not just me I'm tearing apart.”

Or maybe… maybe the fight with himself is going the other way. Not fully able to process this statement or what it means about the Doctor's mental state right now, Jack falls back on habit. “I'm hard to kill.”

The Doctor's breath rushes out of him in a great whoosh of surprise. “You're -” he chokes, breathes in, tries again. “You're _hard_ to _kill?_ Jack, _I've_ ,” he sounds horrified, a note of hysteria reaching his voice, “been killing you, every three days, for the last _six years_.” He is trying to pull his hands back, but Jack won't let go, won't ever let him go. His Doctor is still there, somehow; maybe he can manage _belief_ now, enough for all of them.

Various responses occur to Jack, always one for gallows humor: _then you're not doing a very good job of it_ surprisingly false, _sure, but I was letting you_ true but not useful, _we’ll even it up later_ too much even for him at the moment, _it seemed like much shorter_ almost enough to send him into hysterical giggles. He settles on another truth. “And you'll keep doing so, for as long as it takes. Forever, maybe. But Doctor, please, _never_ tell me how long it's been again.”

“No, I, I've -” He's going to say it again, like he thinks Jack doesn't know, like he hasn't been there every time. He tilts his head to look up at the Doctor's face, and the eye he can see is wide and shocky.

“Yes,” he says, as gently as he can, which isn't very but he tries, “you have. But if you're having a crisis of conscience, you'll have to deal with it yourself. I don't have the resources.” He remains where he is, leaning heavily, pinning the Doctor to the tree behind him, hands caught and arms trapped under Jack's, until, incrementally, the Doctor relaxes. “Back with me?” He feels the Doctor nod against him and relaxes his hold on his hands, leans a bit less. Still thinks he would rather finish this conversation with the other party in his current, contained, position. “What happened?”

The Doctor presses Jack back against him, tentatively. “When you ran off… she wouldn't let me go after you. I thought, I, I don't know what I thought. I was angry,” and suddenly he is, again. “Fancy a TARDIS defying her pilot like that, it's not done. It's not right.” Jack nudges him, hard, with his shoulder. “Well. Yes, well. You're right, that this is tearing me apart, Jack. She's justifiably mad at me, I'm sure. But I thought, if she could keep you from me, if you never wanted to be found… if she hid you… and she did, she did! I was furious, at both of you, and I was terrified. But I'm,” he swallows, and his hair tickles Jack's face as he bows his head, “I'm the only thing here that's terrifying. And I need you, Jack, don’t go.” He is, finally, relaxed now, his head heavy against Jack's, arms loose and fallen low around Jack's waist. It must have been an awful shock to realise the safe prison he had been relying on was made secure only by the TARDIS’s cooperation, and Jack’s own will.

Jack props his elbows against his knees, holds his cuffed wrists out. “I'm yours. Everything I am.” Echoes the Doctor's words back to him. There's a noise like a bit-off sob next to his ear. It's not forgiveness, it's not absolution, it's not even comfort, in the circumstances. But maybe it's still love. “I always have been,” he admits, quietly.

They sit together then, silently, but it is a waiting silence, so Jack waits. The Doctor, at other times, has told him _you shouldn't_ , but he seems to accept it now. At least part of him believes it, and for the rest, Jack suspects the desperate need outweighs the self-loathing. After a few minutes, the Doctor raises his head. “Why did you run from me?”

“The way you were touching me,” Jack replies easily, leant back on his shoulder. “The way you were looking at me. It was more than I could handle, just then.”

“But,” the Doctor trails off, starts over. “Not the clothes, then? It's seemed important to you, the last few weeks. I meant it, you can wear what you like.” It's costing him effort to make it such a broad statement, Jack can tell, and although he appreciates the increased freedom he doubts he will make much use of it.

“That's not, it wasn't,” he's not quite sure how to explain it, now. “It _was_ important, but now it's not, really. It was just… what I was capable of caring about. Think I can manage a little more, now.”

The Doctor is watching him sidelong, examining his face as best he can. He nods, a hint of a smile turning up a corner of his mouth. “I'm very glad to hear it.”

-+-+-+-

It turns out that the Doctor had meant something less like yelling and more like murderous fury, when he said he was angry. He looks surprised as he sifts carefully through the wreckage on the console after breakfast. “I didn't realise… I'm sorry, old girl, I truly am. You were right, and I'm sorry.” He raises his hand to caress the central column, thankfully undamaged. “You are the very soul of benevolence to put up with me.” It will take days, and more apologies, to put right, but they make a good start before breaking for another meal, then work a while longer.

Groaning, Jack straightens up from where he is bent over the console, drops the fiddly microtool and stretches his fingers. The Doctor is lying on his back one panel around to the right, goggles on, soldering something underneath, but takes Jack's hand when Jack crouches down to offer it. “My eyes need a rest. Come with?”

Shaking his head, the Doctor lets go Jack's hand. “In a moment, this is a bit tricky, don't want to stop in the middle. Could come back to more work than we started with.”

Jack grins at him. “That would be impressive. I'll go put on the tea, o Destroyer of Consoles.” The Doctor shoots him a very sour look, impact substantially lessened by the goggles.

In the kitchen, the Doctor rambles on about repairs, and Jack listens. When they've finished, he leaves the dishes in the sink, takes the Doctor's hand again, and leads him to the bedroom. It is Jack's now too, it seems, even if he spends most of his time here dead. The Doctor looks torn. “Jack -”

“Just lie down with me. You're getting twitchy.” He takes the Doctor's jacket, hangs it up. He takes his shirt, too, when that comes off. They lie down, the Doctor with his head pillowed on Jack's shoulder and half draped across his body, restless hands calmed to gentle petting.

“You need to do something different,” Jack says. “Or you're going to destroy yourself. Every time I come back you're here, shaking, and every time it's harder for you to kill me.” The Doctor probably calls it something different, but dead is dead and Jack is practical. “You don't need to be so careful with me anymore, though I appreciate that you have been. It's not that I enjoy dying, Doctor, but what happens if you stop now?”

He has been silent, and continues to be for a few minutes. “Everything I'm trying to fix now will collapse,” he says then, quietly. “Every bit of your suffering will be for no other cause than loyalty to a mad god.” Jack does not point out that, for him, there has never been another cause. “And my death will be there waiting for me. I have to keep going, but Jack, don't make me do it yet.”

Jack cards his fingers through his hair, kisses his forehead. “I won't make you do anything.”

But eventually, he does, because it has been long enough and delaying further is no triumph of morals but only a failure of nerve. As he dies again he hopes the Doctor loses his suddenly-reappeared conscience. It is too hard to be both victim and confidante.

 


	21. The man who swallowed a star

When Jack next is dragged back to life, he is in the midst of a storm. There is a vast pressure, a shrieking, and superimposed over the familiar ceiling he can almost see the clouds rolling in off the sea, breaking on the cliffs. Through it all, the burning eyes of the Doctor. “Jack,” he says, his voice oddly resonant, but tense and strained, “come with me.” He tugs on Jack’s hand, which he is already hanging onto like a lifeline. Improbably, the Doctor’s voice restores some sense of security to Jack; he had thought that lost to him long ago.

He gets up, follows his mad god through the corridors and to the console room; he can hear the tolling of the Cloister bell dimly through the storm. When they reach it, he realises the shrieking he hears is the TARDIS. “What are you doing,” he yells at the Doctor, overwhelmed and forgetting that most of the noise is not in the outside world, “what have you done?”

“Something different!” the Doctor yells back, and pulls him out the doors.

Bizarrely, outside the TARDIS it is a sunny afternoon - or morning, how would he know - on a purple-tinted planet that looks familiar to Jack. Somewhere he has followed the Doctor, or somewhere similar in any case. The landscape is slightly hilly field-and-scrub, and if it weren't for everything else being purple too, he would think it was vast moors of heather. But the sky is deep indigo and the suns are bright white, one much bigger than the other. Distance colours the landscape purple. There are no signs of sentient life in view, but if they have come here before there must be somewhere.

The Doctor stops not far from the TARDIS. “We need to stay near her, she can shield us if this goes poorly.” Jack opens his mouth to suggest that _this_ may be a bad plan, but the Doctor doesn't pause. “I thought if I could hold onto it, if I had you with me, somewhere steady to stand, Jack, give me a lever and _you_ and I can move the universe. But it's too much to hold on to, it burns, it's burning me up.” His eyes are awful, wide and blazing golden, and Jack can see liminal trails surrounding his movements, unrealised potentials, the ghosts of timelines yet to be or yet to be unmade.

Jack stamps down hard on the fear twisting his belly, trying to bubble out. It won't help right now. “I can see that!” He is losing track of the world around them, the rising storm unfolding like immense wings, overwhelming his physical senses.

The Doctor grins, an otherworldly distortion of that beloved manic grin. “Just hold on to me, Jack, don't let go. I've spent years tracing this tangle, that broken TARDIS, remnants of it woven recursively throughout the entire history of this galaxy. I can cut through it here, right here, with you to anchor me, there's no better time.” He is clutching Jack's hand so hard that it is throbbing with at least three broken bones, and his habit of _explaining_ when he should be _doing_ is infuriating, and Jack doesn't even care beyond trying to make sure he survives this.

Jack pulls him close, kisses him fiercely. “Shut up,” he suggests, “and get on with it.”

Reaching up, the Doctor gently touches his face. “Don't be afraid, Captain, the centre will hold.” He tilts his head back, closes his eyes, and the golden fire flares up and consumes him. Then he tenses, bares his teeth; and then he _screams._ That odd resonance in his voice only makes it worse. Jack has never heard the like, and he wonders what, exactly, has been loosed upon the world. The scream ends when he runs out of breath, but the Time Lord's face remains in a silent rictus. Jack doesn't think he has bothered to breath in again, which is technically optional, for him, for a while, but not pleasant to watch. The liminal trails are all around, now, and beyond the Doctor Jack can see changes sweeping across the landscape as the timelines shift. It doesn't look like this planet is going to come out of this in habitable condition.

The Doctor is breathing again, in sharp pained gasps, swaying on his feet, eyes red with broken blood vessels but no longer burning, and Jack stares in horror. This, _this_ is what the Doctor has been doing, for years, as Jack lay dead? Letting this fire burn through him, over and over again? It is a wonder there is anything of him left; this is worse, he said, but by _how much_?

“Anchor me,” he pleads, voice rough from screaming, before collapsing onto Jack. He still hasn't let go Jack's broken hand, but Jack tears at his shirt with the other, ripping buttons, and sets his free hand between the Doctor's hearts. He thinks they are both still beating.

“Doctor? Doctor, what do I _do?_ ” There is no answer, and the grip on his hand relaxes as the Doctor falls unconscious, _unconscious_ not dead, he's not dead, he's _not_.

As the storm breaks over them, as the landscape becomes the broken wasteland it has always been, Jack falls to his knees with the Doctor held fast to him, one hand protecting the back of his neck, the other still between his hearts, keeping them beating, beating, beating.

-+-+-+-

Jack carries the Doctor back to the TARDIS over his shoulder, reduced by unconsciousness to an ungainly pile of trailing limbs. It takes longer than he would like, having to place his feet carefully without shoes and carrying extra weight. His hand, at least, is mended; he revived still curled around the unconscious Doctor, human minds, even immortal, not made to bear that tempest. When they make it back, the TARDIS is welcoming and concerned, no longer shrieking in pain. Jack pats the console fondly as he goes by, pausing briefly to send them safely into the Vortex. “He'll be alright, sweetheart, just going to clean him up and put him to bed. He just needs sleep, I think. I hope.”

The Doctor regains consciousness halfway to the bedroom, and Jack can hear him mumbling, but not make out the words. It may be Gallifreyan. When Jack lays him down carefully on the bed, briefly losing contact, he flails and a shrill scream breaks from his throat. Jack catches his hands immediately, holding them to his chest. “I'm here, Doctor, I'm right here, you're right here, you're back in the TARDIS, you're going to be alright.”

The Doctor calms, and Jack can understand what he is saying now; whether it is more clear, or he has changed languages, or the TARDIS has finally decided to translate, Jack doesn't know. “Don’t let go, it's burning, whirling, wheeling, _falling_ … Don't let go!” His eyes are closed but he is holding Jack's hands tightly, tightly.

“I won't,” Jack says, and sits beside him on the bed. “But I need to get these clothes off you.” There's no intelligible reply, and Jack considers the problem for a moment. The task seems oddly difficult to accomplish whilst maintaining skin contact, and he doesn't think he will be getting any help. Eventually he pulls the Doctor to a sitting position and rests his unresisting head on his shoulder, face pressed to Jack's neck. Having freed both their hands, he undresses the Doctor awkwardly, wrestling his mangled jacket off and tossing it aside, sliding off braces and undoing remaining buttons and bowtie as best he can.

As Jack finally pull his shirt off, the Doctor is mumbling, into his neck, “You burn like a star, and I'm caught in your orbit, around and around we go, so close and whoosh!” with a nebulous attempt at a gesture, “get that slingshot effect, set on fire, eccentric wanderer, that's me.”

Jack shakes his head, reluctantly amused, then lays him back down, carefully, and hooks the fingers of the Doctor's nearer hand into the waist of his trousers, hoping he is aware enough to grasp on. How they are going to manage a shower like this, Jack doesn't know, but it has to happen. They are both plastered in blood and dirt.

“And every time I take it from you it's like extinguishing a star, Jack, it's beautiful and terrible and then I'm lost.” He sounds terribly sad now, and Jack bends down to kiss him gently.

“You're not lost, you're right here, and so am I. You just need sleep, Doctor, shower and sleep, you'll be fine.” He gets the Doctor's trousers and pants down to his knees where they hang off the bed, then is momentarily at a loss again. “Can you sit up?” There's no answer, so Jack pries the Doctor's hand from his waist and, with a hand on his thigh, resituates himself on the floor at the Doctor's feet, leaning his forehead on his knee. No further protests, so it is going as well as could be hoped, he supposes. Boots next. Jack has always loved boots, especially when they lace up high enough he has to loosen each cross of laces individually to pull them off. Not so much on his own feet, admittedly, unless he has someone else to do it for him, but he really had a thing for his first Doctor's boots. These are quite nice as well, though he's had surprisingly few opportunities to remove them… since. He does not think of numbers, no numbers. Boots. One of these days he will do this again in a much more enjoyable situation.

Boots off, socks off, trousers and pants off, finally. Jack puts his shoulder under the Doctor's arm and levers him to his feet, one arm around Jack's shoulders. Unties his own trousers with one hand, and they slide right off. Though the Doctor has made use of this feature on occasion, he suspects it wasn't an original intention; rather that it's what happened when the Doctor asked for _easy when dressing an unconscious man_. Handy though, on occasion. He steers the Doctor to the bathroom; he is at least trying to help now, which is encouraging. When they get there, there is a full bathtub where he has never seen one before. Jack sighs in relief. “ _Thank_ you, beautiful.”

He gets the Doctor settled in the bath, but there is another episode of wild flailing when he loses contact for a moment trying to climb in himself. It starts the Doctor up talking again, which turns out not to be better. “O Captain, my Captain,” he is whispering again, “our fearful trip is done… and on the bed my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead.” Jack shakes him, kneeling between his legs in the bath, draws him to his chest, the suggestion that the Doctor might not _know_ , with every fibre of his being, that Jack is alive and so close to him painting truly dire pictures of his current state of mind.

“Doctor, I’m here,” he raises the Doctor’s limp hand to his face, “I’m right here. I’m always here. I’ll always _be_ here.” He wields soap and flannel with one hand, recognising it as a doomed enterprise but not quite willing to have proceeded only so far as to be muddy, on top of everything else. The Doctor is clinging to him now, trying to get every bit of skin contact he can, and it is shortly impossible to do any washing. Jack sluices water over them, and gives up.

“The man who swallowed a star, that's me. Over and over and over again, burning, burning, birth and death and rebirth in the fire, remake me…” He is babbling, and Jack is terrified; not of him, could not feel fear of this shattered creature trying to crawl inside his skin, but desperately afraid for him, and his chosen path. Jack picks him up bodily and carries him to the bed, uncaring of the water. He finds both towels and blankets waiting for him, dries and wraps the Doctor as best he can, clinging with hysterical strength to Jack as he is. He maneuvers them both into bed, wrapped around each other, and the Doctor falls silent.

“Sleep,” Jack urges him, laying kisses across his face, forehead, eyelids, those beautiful cheekbones, the usually resolute jaw; indulging his fear. There will be time for anger later. “I'll be here, I won't leave you.” He watches, and waits, and doesn't let go, and eventually the Doctor sleeps.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _References to The Second Coming, by William Butler Yeats, as well as O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman._


	22. Economies of need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Explicit sexual situation, though I apologise for the chapter break. D/S, consensual, and as sane as they can be right now._

By the time the Doctor wakes up, Jack has had hours to consider his next words. He feels certain that they are a model of brevity and clarity, and could not possibly be misunderstood in any way, so long as the Doctor awakes lucid. He does, more or less. He startles upward, finds himself trapped by Jack's arms, and flails momentarily. Realises where he is, settles, asks tentatively, “Jack? What, erm.” Sees Jack's face.

“Never. Do. That. Again!” Message delivered, he stares furiously at the Doctor from a bare handspan away. It is, he hopes, intimidating.

Gratifyingly, the Doctor blanches and pulls back a little further. “I, well. But. You _said_ I had to try something different,” he offers, weakly.

“ _Not that._ ”

“I'm -” he looks again at Jack's face, “- sorry, I'm sorry, Jack. I'll think of something else.”

Jack sighs, satisfied for now, and closes his eyes, tries to let go his anger and fear with indifferent success. “ _You_ need a keeper.” Clearly they have been doing this backwards. He feels the Doctor shift closer again.

“Are you volunteering?”

“Absolutely not.” But his lips twitch up, and there's a great sense of relief that sleep has evidently rendered the Doctor approximately as sane as he had been before he attempted to burn out his brain. “Never get a moment's rest.”

Sounding as though he thinks himself clever, the Doctor points out, “You're resting _now_.” Jack can feel his breath against his lips.

Jack sets his left hand between the Doctor's hearts and pushes firmly, until the Doctor is lying flat on his back and Jack is leaning over him, propped on an elbow. “No, _you're_ resting. Captain's orders.” He thinks about that for a moment, caught between long ago memories and more recent but strangely blurred experience, then adds, “If that's alright.”

Eyes dark, the Doctor stares up at him. Swallows hard, wets his lips with a flash of pink tongue. “It's alright. Anything you want. Captain.”

A jolt of arousal at the sudden role reversal shoots through Jack and he groans, buries his face against the Doctor's shoulder. This is not what he was expecting, but the Doctor is dealing with a fresh new guilty conscience, the aftermaths of a disastrous and dangerously implemented plan, and whatever damage he has done himself on top of it. “You’re not in your right mind.”

“When have I ever been, then?” The Doctor trails fingertips in ephemeral patterns down his neck, shoulders, back, making Jack shiver. “I want you,” he whispers.

“You want me to punish you,” Jack replies, flatly, and feels the Doctor nod hesitantly. “Gods of mercy, Doctor, do you know what you're asking for? There’s so much wrong with this idea, it's not safe.”

“ _I’m_ not safe,” the Doctor says, wretchedly. Jack lies there, breathes, the smell of the Doctor’s skin and sweat in his nose; in and out, in and out. He can’t do what the Doctor is asking. It is an attempt to assuage his erstwhile keeper’s reawakened conscience, he understands, the unusually suicidal behavior of this morning (yesterday? The last few days?) and now this request, which neither of them are in a good state of mind for. It was only days ago he came back to himself, besides which Jack is honest enough with himself to realize that the possibility of punishment, of revenge, is a little _too_ attractive just yet. It wouldn't be safe, for either of them, and it could be the kind of mistake Jack would regret for a very long time. Neither is it what either of them need, he suspects. But he does want what the Doctor is offering, power and responsibility after so long without; wants to be partner again, not pet.

The Doctor’s words lead him to a counteroffer; instead of the safety he is asking for, that of sanctions imposed on a threat, Jack can offer him the safety of a protected place, the safety of rebuilding trust. It will still be uncomfortable enough to satisfy the Doctor, the loss of control both gift and punishment; Jack has no intention of making it easy. But he can bring them both out the other side. Decision made, he pushes himself back up to look down on the Doctor, leaving the hand holding him down. “You can have me,” he says, “as we have been, and you can work out whatever you need to; I can take it, I promise.” The Doctor starts to shake his head, but Jack continues. “Or, we can do it my way, but I won't hurt you.”

“Jack, please -”

“No. If you need pain here, you'll have to cause it yourself. I can't do that right now. But,” Jack moves now, carefully collects the Doctor's surprisingly fine wrists in his own large hand and raises them to the pillow above his head, “if you give over control to me, I _won't hurt you_.” Trust is not a thing that comes easily to the Doctor.

The Doctor is a study in mixed responses. His arms are tense, just short of pulling away, and he is shaking his head again, but there is a flush spreading from his face down his chest and he is half hard already. With an effort, Jack keeps his face impassive as he watches the silent argument. He already knows the answer, understands that the trust in him the Doctor carries so fiercely in the future must be earned in Jack’s present. The Doctor wants to feel virtuous for submitting to the mortification of the flesh, for giving Jack this opportunity to repay the abuse and heartache, but he can compromise.

Finally the Doctor comes to a decision, and lies still in Jack's grasp. It's not surrender; he probably doesn't know how. It is simply an acknowledgement that, in the here and now, Jack may make rules, and the Doctor may choose to follow them, until he doesn't. Jack is not sure whether he wants to push the Doctor to that point or not, just yet.

“Jack, I want, please -” This time he simply has no idea what to say, and Jack is amused.

“Call me Captain,” he suggests with calculated cruelty. “It's time you redeemed the title.”

The Doctor's eyes go wide and he swallows convulsively. “Captain,” he whispers, eyes never leaving Jack's face. After hearing it so many times as a summons to Jack's submissive side, hearing it now, like this, is a heady rush of power.

Jack presses the Doctor's wrists into the pillow, then releases them. “Stay. If you can't, I'll tie you.” He cherishes the outrage that flickers across the Doctor's face. It is followed by stubborn determination, which is also good; setting the Doctor to fighting himself is Jack's objective now, on the grounds that it will wear him out twice as fast. He backs away on the bed, just inches, but it removes all contact between their bodies.

“No!” The Doctor's face contorts, and his arms almost come off the pillow to reach for Jack. He sounds genuinely afraid. “Jack, no, please don't, _Captain!_ ”

Jack relents in the face of this uncharacteristic display, and presses his hand back onto the Doctor's wrists. It makes the restraint into the source of relief and the focus of the Doctor's mind, and as Jack watches his face fall slack, eyes drift closed, he understands that this could be far too easy, that he could break the Doctor right now. It would be too much, as revenges go. Jack himself is not broken, although perhaps he was for a while. But he understands the Doctor's position a little better now; Jack possesses something essential to the Doctor, so the Doctor must possess Jack. All these years and deaths, driven by the economies of need played out in living beings.

Jack doesn't know how to dig them out of it, but he knows he doesn't want to be the one who breaks the Doctor.

“Doctor. I'm going to let go again,” he ignores the pathetic moan, “but I won't leave. I'm right here. I'll catch you.” He takes his hand away, and the Doctor lies still this time, watching him hungrily. Jack takes the opportunity to fumble in the bedside table for lube, leaves it on the bed in easy reach. Then he moves up the bed a bit until he can lean over the Doctor, without yet touching. “If it's truly more than you can bear, your safe word is still custard.” He is apparently lacking the capacity to wonder how Jack knows a safe word he hasn't told him yet. “Otherwise, please feel free to beg or curse me as you like. I won't leave you, under any provocation. You _are_ safe here.”

There is a strange mix of fear and relief on the Doctor's face, and Jack knows he is on the right track. He can do this, give them both what they need right now. He bends down, lays his lips gently against the Doctor's temple, and he jolts like it's an electric contact. Jack kisses brow, cheekbone, jaw, chin, nose, each touch lasting only seconds.

“This is, Jack, stop, this is cruel, you're making it worse -” the Doctor's eyes are rolling in his head and he is starting to look sick, but despite his words he makes no effort to pull away as Jack continues his disorientating attack. Setting down against his lips next, Jack swallows the Doctor's groan of relief when he doesn't pull away, instead meeting eagerly open mouth with intent. Jack finds quickly that he is not in control of this kiss as the Doctor captures his tongue and sucks on it, which is, which is just, he can feel it like a live wire straight down to his cock, it's too much right now and Jack pulls away, breathing deeply. The Doctor's head follows him, but not very far; he is not yet willing to choose between being tied down or conceding this battle of wills. “Come back!”

Jack cocks an eyebrow at him. “You're not very good at this. At least pretend to play along.”

Sullenly, the Doctor glares at him for a moment, then apparently remembers who asked for this and adds, “Captain. Please come back.”

“No.” The outrage is back, and Jack glories in it, especially the way all the Doctor's attempts to look intimidating fail when lying naked below Jack, cock red and weeping, holding his own arms above his head. He can't puff himself up, or get in anyone's face, or look detached and brooding, or implacable and ageless, and his flashing eyes are glorious but impotent, by his own will. Jack holds the reins of the Oncoming Storm, temporary though his dominion may be. He smiles, a real, delighted smile. “I love you like this, all needy and desperate.”

“ _Captain._ ”

“No, I see where it's confusing, but you're not giving the orders today, Doctor.” Though that is entirely for provocation and his own amusement; ultimately the Doctor is held here only by his own will, the only way he can ever be held. Jack lays a hand against his throat experimentally, pressing lightly, and watches as the Doctor swallows hard, his breathing turning to quick harsh gasps as he fights himself, the need to continue only slightly outweighing his desire to remove himself from this vulnerable position. “I won’t hurt you,” Jack says, again.

“I know!” It’s nearly a sob, but the reminder seems to help. After the Doctor calms, finally accepting the restraint, Jack lets go again and watches another moment of terror wash over his lover. He doubts either of them can take much more of this, and leans down to place another brief kiss on the Doctor’s forehead. This gets him a desperate look and the Doctor begging so sweetly, “Please, Jack, _please_ ,” his open mouth reaching for Jack’s, so he gives in for just a moment, kissing him deeply before pulling away again with a groan. How far can he make himself push, seeing his lover in distress; and how far does the Doctor need to be pushed?

Jack skims his hand slowly over the Time Lord's chest, hovering a bare inch above, tracing the contours of muscles, ribs, the dip of his belly, the prominent hip bones. His body arches up toward Jack's hand as if drawn by a magnet, and as he reaches the Doctor's cock it jerks up as well. Jack allows the contact, briefly, which inspires a needy whine that quickly gives way to a howl of deprivation.

“Rotten cocktease! You're a thrice-damned opportunistic pettifogger, time-misbegotten lecherous sod, your gods of _mercy_ should strike you down for blasphemy!” Jack listens in fascination as the torrent of words continues, as the Doctor finally unleashes all his frustration and need and anger in his inimitably verbal way, body writhing, heels drumming the bed - and wrists pressed to the pillow as if nailed there.

This is no simple desire for punishment, or sop to a guilty conscience; there is a need driving this that is nearly as strong as the Doctor's need for Jack's anchoring presence. Starting to suspect what it is, Jack waits till the Doctor runs down to unintelligible mumbles, then pops the cap on the lube bottle. Immediately the Doctor's eyes are riveted to his hands, and he falls silent. He pours some into his hand, puts down the bottle, then stares down at the Doctor, lying flushed and wild eyed, hair in a frenzied spray about his head. At the least, Jack has successfully distracted him from the fear.

“You hate this, don't you? Needing me. You're trying to break the addiction. To set us both free.” It is a guess, but Jack knows the Doctor well, knows he would not choose this whether or not he would otherwise choose Jack's presence. Knows he can and will destroy himself in an effort to put things right, has intimate and recent experience with this. And this time, Jack has a real choice, and a responsibility. “We can do this as many times as you need, Doctor, but we're done for today.” The Doctor shakes his head slowly, seems to have run out of words, still watching Jack's hand. “As many times as you need,” Jack repeats. “Leave your hands where they are, if you like.” And he gently closes his hand on the Doctor's cock.

 


	23. Wandering planet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Explicit consensual sex, as safe and sane as they can manage._

The noise the Doctor makes is absolutely filthy, and completely intoxicating. Knees bent, feet on the bed, his hips thrust into Jack's hand with more force than Jack was expecting. In hindsight he is not sure why he was surprised - he has taken the Doctor somewhere with no room for restraint, beyond the single anchoring point of his wrists pressed to the pillow. It is a place Jack has been many times, and the Doctor very few yet, as far as Jack knows.

There is no finesse in this, just a mad race for the finish, and Jack firms his grip and gives the Doctor what he needs, leans down to capture his mouth and take what he needs in turn. He sucks on the Doctor's lip, biting down lightly, and the gasps and bitten off cries against his mouth are driving him a little bit crazy. It's not long before the Doctor cries out and his hips stutter to a stop, cool wetness coating Jack's hand as he continues stroking until his lover is wrung dry with a final shudder.

Jack kneels up, then, left knee against the Doctor's hip to keep him safe, and takes his time licking the come from his fingers, watching the Doctor watch him with eyes dark and dazed. He collects a drop that fell and brings it to the Doctor's lips and he licks it obediently, opens his mouth as Jack pushes his fingers inside. The feel of that domineering mouth made pliant to Jack's whims, agile tongue working against his fingers, makes Jack groan in need and a dark desire to turn this whole situation on its head. He does his best to channel it safely.

Reaching to set his right hand over the wrists that have yet to move, he leans down to the Doctor's ear. “I'm going to fuck you,” he says quietly, intently, “unless you tell me to stop. You're going to come again so hard you'll see the stars, you're going to scream my name here at the centre of Time. I'm going to make you _mine_.”

The only response is a low moan as the Doctor sucks on his fingers. It doesn't sound like any _no_ or _stop_ Jack has ever heard, but he wants, needs, to hear the Doctor say it. Needs to take his consent as he has had Jack’s for every death. He pulls his hand back and the sight of that swollen mouth, lips wet and red and open for him, is almost unbearably arousing; he pauses to take a few deep breaths.

“Doctor,” he's licking, nibbling at those lips that will haunt his dreams, “I need to hear you. Tell me yes, or tell me to stop.” He hopes he can stop.

“Yes!” It comes out as a breathless moan. “Show me the stars, Captain.”

Jack groans, long and deep, and grasps his own cock, a couple of quick strokes to take the edge off; what chance has he to do what he's promised? “Oh fuck, oh gods, Doctor, the things you do to me.” He kisses the Time Lord laid out wantonly below him roughly, possessively, then reaches for the lube again. Moving in between the Doctor's splayed legs, Jack gives his already re-hardening cock a firm lick from root to tip and gently mouths each of his balls as he shudders in reaction. He licks at the skin below, enjoying the salty, musky taste, then slides his hands under the Doctor's arse to prop him up a bit and moves down again, gently teases the tight ring of muscle there with the tip of his tongue.

“Jaaa-ack!” The Doctor's hips are twitching aimlessly in his grasp and he could do this all day, listen to that beautiful voice turn his name to music all day, if not for the arousal coiling in his own belly, expanding out through his skin until he can't see straight. He sets the Doctor's arse down, with a squeeze for good measure which earns him another moan, and slicks his fingers. Rubbing with one fingertip, he waits for the muscle to relax, then presses in slowly. They haven't done it this way around often, lately, so he is gentle and thorough and as slow as he can bear to be, but once he sees the Doctor writhing and crying out wordlessly with two of his fingers disappeared inside him, feels the triumph of causing this, to _this_ man, Jack is lost to desperate, consuming desire.

He pulls his fingers out, ignoring the needy whine from the Doctor, and sits back on his heels. Gives his lover one slow, firm stroke as he slicks up his own cock, pressing hard for a moment to try to give himself a little more time; the Doctor sobs when he lets go. Wipes his hand on the bed and hoists the Doctor's hips up to prop them on his thighs. Takes another moment to appreciate the wide-eyed, unfocused look of anticipation on the Doctor's face, the way his fingers are clutching spasmodically but still set firmly on the pillow over his head, that tongue darting out to lick _those lips_ … Jack gives himself up to need and pushes forward with a feral grin.

The Doctor cries out, a gasping, broken sound, and Jack stops, recalled abruptly to himself. “Doctor? Are you alright?” He thinks his voice is passably controlled. Probably. But the Doctor is glaring venomously at him, panting but determined.

“Stop. Stopping!” he gasps out, pulling at Jack with the legs he has locked around Jack's waist. “Damn you, Captain!”

Startled into a bark of laughter, Jack smiles down at his lover and drops forward, hands braced below the Doctor's shoulders. “As you wish.” The possessive, destructive edge to his arousal is gone now and he is intensely relieved. It is a stretch to reach, but his lips meet the Doctor's briefly as he presses forward until he is fully sheathed in the willing flesh of his beloved madman.

He can't manage much thrusting in this position, more of a rocking motion, which is deliberate as he is also at the perfect angle to hit that sensitive bundle of nerves with every stroke. Jack is driving his lover relentlessly before him, trying desperately to hold on, to last until he can tip the Doctor over the edge to the stars he's promised him, but it's not enough, it's not enough, Jack is going to lose this race any second now.

Sudden inspiration, and Jack shifts his weight to his right hand, offers his left to the Doctor, cuff to his mouth. Gasps out, “Bite,” and he does, teeth pressing hard against Jack's wrist, grounding him just enough. Something long broken inside Jack seems to shift and settle at the sight. He pushes forward as hard as he can once, twice more and the Doctor is falling, screaming, _ah!_ or maybe it's _Jack!_ after all, it’s hard to tell with the cuff in the way. Then he freezes, eyes staring unseeing, and Jack is seeing god as well, his own personal god, mad and incarnate beneath him, and he is falling too, ground rushing up to meet him. He loses himself inside the Doctor with a deep groan, then topples down onto his elbows, trying somewhat vaguely not to crush his lover. Jack lays his head on the Doctor's chest, and thinks of nothing but the gradually slowing drumbeat beneath his ear for a small eternity.

When he finally raises his head, the Doctor is watching him, eyes warm and curious. “Jack,” he's whispering, “my Jack. I missed you so.”

Jack smiles at him, lazy and satisfied, and shuffles backward, pulling out and letting the Doctor's hips down gently. He tries to get up, but the Doctor grabs at him with arms now freed, abruptly anxious again. “I'll be right back, just going to get a flannel.” The Doctor subsides grudgingly, clutching the blankets instead, and Jack hurries on his errand. He still believes, knows, they get through this, and he hopes this has been a step toward that end, but he doesn't know how much longer they can go on like this. One foot in front of the other, he supposes; as long as it takes.

Jack cleans them both off, then climbs into the bed, leaning down to kiss the Doctor slowly, deeply, back into boneless relaxation. Then he nudges the Doctor onto his side and lies down at his back, left arm pillowing his head, right arm around his chest, face buried in hair that still smells of ashes. The Doctor pulls the blankets back around them, and Jack can hear him humming, quietly.

“Get some more sleep,” he tells the maybe-less-broken man in his arms. “I’ll stay with you.”

He thinks, this time, that the Doctor is singing. He lifts his head and can just make out the words, sung in a sleepy mumble to the tune of _For he’s a jolly good fellow_. “Oh, I'm a wandering planet, I'm a wandering planet, I'm a wandering plaaa-net, and you're the sun in my sky…” Jack snorts, softly, and settles down, spooned behind this man who uses him to remake Time. He knows now that he is the one who's gone mad, because absurdly, incredibly, he still feels a sense of peace in this place; lying in his deathbed, his wandering planet caught fast in his arms, listening to the last TARDIS harmonize with the last Time Lord singing nonsense in his sleep.

 


	24. All the worlds and time

When the Doctor wakes again, he also wakes Jack, which is a surprise to them both. As Jack continues lying in bed, hands behind his head, savoring the lassitude that remains from real sleep, the Doctor jumps to his feet. “Lazy layabout! Get up, things to do, puppies to rescue, balloons to catch.” He sounds fond instead of impatient or irritated, today, which is a nice change.

Jack waves his hand expansively. “Go for it. I worked hard yesterday.” He gives the Doctor a wolfish grin and a wink, and is surprised to catch a shy, boyish smile on the Doctor's face. How strange to be these people again, after so long. It's going to take practice.

“Can't be that much trouble, or you wouldn't keep coming back,” the Doctor tries to banter back, but it is maybe a little more on point than either of them are comfortable with at the moment, and Jack lets it pass. The Doctor looks away awkwardly, and finally notices the mess strewn about the bedroom. “What happened in here? It looks like a laundry got in a fight with a muddy grantiphant.”

Reluctantly giving up the idea of a lie-in, Jack sits up, stretching. The Doctor is watching him appreciatively from the corner of his eye whilst surveying the room, and Jack is very relieved at the evidence that his choices yesterday had been sound ones, even if his reasons were suspect at times. “Close. The laundry got in a fight with a timeline change, and then _you_ got in a fight with a bath.”

His Time Lord is regarding him with suspicion, narrow-eyed. “So when you say _close_ , are you implying that I am the event similar to a muddy grantiphant?”

“You're the one making comparisons here.” Jack manages about half a grin, the other half lost to remembered fear. “I'm not surprised you don't remember much, you were delirious.” The Doctor is wandering around, hooking various bits of clothing and towels with his toes and tossing them into the air to catch. He is running out of distractions and rapidly getting twitchy, his efforts to nonchalantly not be in contact with Jack turning to awkward hovering as he is also unwilling to move further away. Jack takes pity on him, or at least takes the decision away. “Go take a shower. I'll be along in a few minutes.”

Slinging a woeful look over his shoulder, the Doctor slopes off toward the bathroom, bundle of laundry in his arms.

Life never gets easier, Jack thinks, just more and more complicated. “I'll be there, Doctor. I'm hardly going to let you down _now_.” Visibly brightening at this reassurance, his friend, jailor, general, abuser, lover, disappears into the bathroom.

-+-+-+-

When Jack arrives, having stretched _a few_ to five and not daring longer, he finds the Doctor standing, frozen, just outside the shower, balanced between his need for Jack and his need to not need Jack. He presses up against the Doctor's back, wraps his arms around his body, and feels him melt in relief.

“I'm sorry, Jack,” he says quietly, miserably. “I'm asking so much from you, I've _taken_ so much from you…”

Not ready for this apology, though he would accept one for making him carry the Doctor's bleeding, unconscious body back to the TARDIS, Jack deflects, distracts. “Don't strain yourself. We just keep going, you and me, keep putting one foot in front of the other.” He moves the Doctor bodily into the shower, more than big enough for both of them. “Wash your hair, I couldn't do that in the bath and your timeline change was a big damn mess.”

After they shower, Jack dresses his wandering planet in a light blue shirt and yellow braces for his own amusement, recalling a long ago sea bordered by sandy desert; the Doctor dresses Jack in saffron.

-+-+-+-

It is another day, twenty four hours where Jack is alive around the clock, if there were any clocks to see, before he makes the Doctor talk about anything uncomfortable again, and even then it is an accident. They are nearly done repairing the damaged console, and the TARDIS is talking to the Doctor again which is a relief to everyone. Jack is in the sling below, finishing up some connections where they had to replace components and rewire, when he notices the Doctor rushing madly around above him.

“I’m not done yet!” he calls, alarmed.

“Don’t need those!” the Doctor crows, manic grin on his face, hands in the air, jacket flaring about him. “And here!” he flicks a switch, “we!” spins dials on a panel a full armspan away and rings a bell, “go!” pulls the lever and indeed they do. Then everything seems to slide sideways, and Jack is very glad he is already sitting securely; something above him is failing its run-in dramatically and he can hear the Doctor yelling, “No! No, no, no! Stop it, that’s not right!”

And then after another minute everything is silent again, until he hears a cough, and the Doctor is peering down at him somewhat sheepishly through the floor. “Sorry Jack, thought you just had the vinegar and the scanner controls left. Turns out that, erm. Please finish up with the lateral dimensional stabilizer while I get this all cleaned up, will you?”

Rolling his eyes, Jack bends forward to brush wire clippings out of his hair, glad it was only that and not a spanner to the head. “Only you, Doctor…” He has taken to wearing a shirt when working on the TARDIS, for many good reasons, but the Doctor's idea of what _ready_ means is the biggest. So long as he doesn't tuck it in, the Doctor still has easy access to skin contact and they are both happy.

He pulls everything back into place and solders the last connections, works on taping and tidying the wiring. “How did we even get, wherever that was? That purple planet. Used-to-be-purple.”

The Doctor has his head buried under the other side of the console, but he pauses in his work. “That was Ep. But, that is a good question. I don't know!” He rolls over so he can look down at Jack again, and Jack admires his new view, that lanky body sprawled out above him, pressed down full-length, one boot waving in the air, the other tapping the floor in counterpoint to the tapping of the sonic screwdriver. The clear floor is his favourite feature of this room, he decides; the TARDIS hums in agreement. A slow smile creeps across his face as he realises the extent of her collaboration. There are good stories there, he suspects.

The Doctor is still talking, thoughtful scowl on his face. “She takes me where I need to go, you know, she told me, there was this time we answered a distress call, I thought it was… well, she told me. And I suppose, the state I was in, there's rarely been somewhere I needed to go more. I don't think she was very happy with me, actually, but -” Abruptly his scowl intensifies and the boot in the air thumps down. “ _What_ are you two - Jaaack,” he draws out his name dangerously, so familiarly, “stop looking at me like that, I'm _busy_.”

Jack attempts a look of wide-eyed innocence. “Like what?”

“Like this is some sort of - _sweet shop_ and you're hungry! Time and a place, Jack.” He looks far more offended than Jack thinks he has any right to be.

“You keep me barefoot and shirtless,” Jack points out, quite reasonably he feels, even if he's not currently shirtless.

The Doctor is starting to look a bit flustered, and there is some squirming that Jack is not above enjoying; in fact, he is willing to enjoy it from any direction. “Well, but that's not - that's practical, Jack, it's different, it's not like I… well, not _much_ ,” he trails off.

Jack raises his eyebrows, both, politely incredulous. “I’m disappointed in you, in that case. I am much more pleasant to look at than you're implying.” He rolls his shoulders back and turns his head a bit to give the Doctor a better view.

The Doctor flushes, then rolls over and sits up, facing away from him. “I didn't… please believe me, I didn't mean for you to be some sort of, of, decorative fixture or…”

Suddenly Jack doesn't want to be having this conversation any more, but it's too late, let the Doctor run away and he'll never come back.  “Obligate bedwarmer? Or maybe you’re trying to say you didn't _mean_ to rape me? … And yet, here we are.” He leans sideways in the sling, pulls one leg up and wedges himself in, drained of any will to keep himself upright. Repairing broken trust is terribly slow, exhausting work, and he usually opts to ignore it, let it happen in the background.

The silence stretches, until the Doctor acknowledges, quietly, “Yes. That. I'm sorry, Jack, so sorry. I don't know how you can still bear to touch me.”

When Jack reaches for a response, it is anger that drives his words. “Let's get one thing straight, Doctor. I'm not here to deal with your guilt. Anything else, fine, but I don't have to help you with the guilt you have from abusing me, and I won't. I love you, I'll help you, I'll tell you when I can trust you again, but I won't punish you, I won't set you penance, and on that topic, I'll neither listen to you nor reassure you. You made your bed, you lie in it. Atone on your own time.”

There is a much longer silence, as the Doctor thinks this through, and decides what he can say. Jack doesn't move, curious in a detached sort of way what the next move in their slow dance around the past, the past… _since,_ will be. He is cognizant that he has some work to do, too. And relieved that he has said what he wanted to say since the Doctor came to him in the garden with that newly restored conscience.

“I understand,” he says, finally. “You're right, of course. I need to tell you,” he is clearly feeling his way here uncertainly, “that the lack of shoes was never intentional, and… Jack, I'm terrible at this, I don't want to tell you what to do, even if it's _do what you want_.”

It is a good try, as these things go, better than he was expecting. Jack sighs, feeling hollowed out. “I've been doing what I want, lately. I want to be here, Doctor, I want to help you. Just, not with that, and not as your pet. And I'd really like to avoid having to carry your unconscious body back here again.” He pauses, wonders if that’s fair, considering his own tendency to be a _dead_ body, then decides it is. “You can apologise for that one.”

The Doctor leaps to his feet and makes his way down to Jack, sits on the floor in front of him. Jack rolls his head to the side so he can watch the Doctor from the corner of his eye, but makes no further movement. “I am truly sorry for how much I frightened you, and I will try not to achieve results so catastrophically again, but I’m not sorry for trying, nor for the results. It was… vastly more powerful, with you there for leverage. It comes to, I'm trying to move the universe into a new configuration by main force, and you are the lever I need to do it; or maybe you're the firmament and I'm the lever. But until I can…” he makes several uninformative hand gestures here, but it is already a more coherent explanation than Jack has heard in the past. “I thought, when I started, that force would, _could,_ be enough. I thought - Jack, there's never been anything like you before, this is a different universe with you in it, it's not the one I was born in, learned in. I thought my understanding of the Laws of Time was out-of-date, incomplete. It turns out to not be that easy.”

Jack, who has been listening to the Doctor in increasing fascination, somewhat against his will, groans. “When is it ever?"

Reaching out carefully, the Doctor delicately circles Jack's trailing ankle with his fingers, and a subtle tension flows out of him. “It's never easy,” he whispers. “Not in all the worlds and Time.”

Willing to move on for now, Jack reaches out his hand and the Doctor accepts it with alacrity, bringing it to his mouth for a brief kiss. “So what next?” Jack asks, then remembers, “Wait, if that was Ep -” but the Doctor is already answering and Jack leaves it for now.

“Now we observe again, find out what I've wrought.  The paradox machine is gone from here, now, but it was so tangled up in the timelines I expect quite a lot is different. It shouldn’t be as hard a change to maintain as some of the Fixed Points I've broken. That's the true difficulty, Jack, I have to maintain it all until I can coax it, force it, whatever it takes, into some new base state that will self-maintain.” He sighs, and suddenly Jack can see the immense toll this Sisyphean task is, has been, taking on the Time Lord. “And I don't know how yet; may not know till I get there.”

“And meanwhile,” Jack says, tiredly, “you’re going to keep killing me.”

The Doctor nods silently and doesn't meet his eyes.

Jack hauls himself to his feet, tugs on the Doctor's hand. He feels too wrung out to put off the inevitable any longer. “Then let's get to it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> __[Yes, vinegar. Might be!](http://news.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/blue-peter-tardis-console-competition-update/)  
>  It's not my intention to treat the topic lightly, but abuse by loved ones is a sticky subject. Sometimes ignoring it for a while is the only way to go on.  
> 


	25. The great meddler

His life is a series of extremes these days, these years. The intense, blazing high of possessing the power of Jack's unending, never-to-be-unmade nature, rivaled only by the thrill of possessing Jack himself. The crushing dizziness when it is gone and only the sickly shifting, sliding, unsteady timelines remain, held in place by his will alone which is a slender thread indeed to hang worlds on. The anchoring solidity when Jack returns, a support strong enough to hang everything including himself from, that he clings to with increasing desperation as his own will loses ground against an uncaring universe. The utter despair and eviscerating guilt of needing another taste of Jack's power, made worse by the _desire_ for it that never quite leaves him. He hates himself even as he reaches for it again, leaves Jack cold and still in his bed, laid out so he will wake as comfortably as possible, tears of pain wiped away.

It's an addiction; he has read about them, of course. The high, followed by the awful low, only fixed temporarily by another dose of the poison. Jack knows it too, and he has promised to help, but the Doctor is not sure any help is possible. It's all too big, and if it's too big for the last Time Lord who could possibly handle it? And sometimes, sometimes he doesn't want the help at all.

-+-+-+-

Alone, he pilots the TARDIS to discover what new world he has made. It is so close to the vision he had when he stepped onto this path, broken and desperate as he was, that he might make what he touched anew, guide events on a grand scale into something better.

Somewhere along the timeline, on this world or a nearby one, the remnants of a Type 92 weaponised TARDIS, a paradox machine from the Time War, fell from a rift. Still partially functional, it was enough to teach a previously minor civilization time travel, and eventually basic paradox manipulation, which resulted in the fascinating mess that his TARDIS had brought the Doctor here to deal with at the beginning. He had picked at it for years, poking, prodding, examining causes and effects, making changes as he liked. He had drawn on Jack's power with no restraint, gone far beyond anything acceptable as he gradually forgot, let himself forget, that it was _Jack,_ not simply the never-ceasing dynamo to drive his ambitions, in all ways his possession. A Time Lord's arrogance, grown out of all bounds, lost to all reason. He had exploited Jack's trust and become a monster in truth, only beginning to realize it when he threw Jack to the Reaper, and Jack gave himself up wholeheartedly to oblivion. What of his heart the Doctor hadn't already broken, at least.

If he thought it would help, he would offer Jack his life, after this work is done. But Jack has already rejected any offer of the sort, will take in payment now only the opportunity to _help_ the Doctor, and it is a bitter thing to live with, that his regret and guilt have no currency.

Not, of course, a _new_ thing. Atone on his own time, Jack said. Well, and so he will.

The Doctor steps from the TARDIS into a broken, radioactive wasteland.

-+-+-+-

Alone, the Doctor waits for Jack, exhausted, dizzy, heartsick, but provisionally hopeful. He has spent so much time alone since he took Jack from that stasis pod. He rearranges timelines by himself, traces effects by himself, breaks Fixed Points if he wants to by himself, pilots the TARDIS by himself. He eats by himself, showers by himself, and tries so very hard not to sleep by himself; but when he does it is in Jack's old room, because he can't, he just can't sleep while Jack lies dead next to him, but the smell of him is comforting. Jack hardly gets a moment to himself, but the Doctor can't bring himself to stay away anymore when Jack is _there_ , burning gloriously bright, all of Time wheeling around him strong and steady.

Now he waits, alone, next to his lover’s body, fingers entwined with his cold ones for what comfort he can glean from the constant timeline stretching forward forever, dimmed in death though it is.

Alone, also, he endured the gradual consumption of his mind by the fires of the stolen life he was never meant to hold on to, waiting for his Fixed Point to save him from his folly. It had been a terrible risk, only partially redeemed, and he will not attempt it again; but neither can he apologize for trying. It could have been enough to end this, in some fashion. Instead it fixed him to his path even more firmly, almost burnt out his mind, and scared Jack nearly witless. Not his best day's work, despite its partial success, for in removing the ultimately destructive influence of the remnant of a war that never was, he has doomed a race to annihilation in its infancy.

He can fix it. He is the Doctor; surely he can fix it. He has made a good start. He waits, impatient, exhausted, and lonely, for his next chance.

-+-+-+-

When Jack revives, the Doctor just clings. It's not a day for banter, and that's alright; Jack accepts his lead in this, as in all things. It is heady, and sometimes terrifying, to have this immense force of nature bending itself to his whim; the knowledge that Jack follows him willingly does nothing to diminish his own culpability, rather increases the magnitude of his breach of trust.

Neither is it a day for practicing letting go, and he holds to Jack when they get up and through their shower, only separating first to undress, then dress quickly.

In the kitchen, Jack searches his face, finds some unknown answer, seats him at the table and carefully extracts his hand from the Doctor's grip. “Deep breaths,” he says, kisses the Doctor lingeringly, then goes to start the tea and coffee. After their last conversation in the console room, the kiss is immensely reassuring, and the Doctor tries to relax and wait as best he can, which honestly is quite poorly, but he can't be good at everything. Besides he spends far too much time waiting. Alone. Alone and bored. And now unmoored again, drifting.

Words start to form, fall from his overextended mind. “Genocide again, Jack. How many times do you suppose that makes? The Great Meddler strikes again.” His hands have crept up into his hair, and Jack is watching him with concern as the water boils. “It was all such a mess, I thought I was _helping_. But these people, the Sep, all their colonies, everything, they muddled themselves up so thoroughly that when I took out all the paradoxes it didn’t restore their timeline, it just… cut it off. Snip, remove this thread, now they destroyed themselves before ever making it off their own little planet.” His hands clench, and he welcomes the pain. “Better than destroying half the galaxy later, maybe, but it’s rubbish, such a bloody mess. And it’s all my fault.”

Jack is silent as he fixes their drinks, and the Doctor can’t help wishing he would talk, maybe it would help, but he is not about to insist. He has already insisted on too much. He feels Jack coming closer, and remembers a time when that vast stillness loomed, burned, instead of comforted, and he can’t wish that back. Of all the things he has done and caused, broken and destroyed, there is this that he can’t regret. The _need_ , he could do without. But the comfort he has reached with the current state of the universe, embodied in this man who loves him more than reason can ever explain, this he will accept with what grace he can muster.

His tea appears, milk no sugar, and he wonders if Jack ever forgets and makes it to a different preference as he occasionally has. No, probably not at this late date; he forgets that their past is much longer ago for Jack than for himself. Jack pulls a chair around to the Doctor’s side, sits and sips his coffee; and meanwhile rests his left hand on the back of the Doctor’s neck, fingers in his hair, which is better, it’s much better. Impossible, incredible man, to care for him like this after all he has done. He leans into the relaxing heat, the queasy knot in his belly slowly unraveling.

“Has it steadied to, what was it, a self-maintaining state yet?” The question recalls the Doctor to the here and now and he reaches for his cooling tea.

“No. Well, locally, yes, but no, not in general. They were such a big part of history here.” Whole swathes of timelines dangle, unsupported, further from the epicentre. Usually he gets to clean up other people's stupid mistakes; it's not as fun taking a close look at his own.

“Can you fix it, then?” Jack is not watching him, just finishing his coffee. He has it in a small cup today and he is looking at it like it has personally offended him as he drains the last of it; the Doctor suspects a failed experiment. “Did you ever meet Ianto? Made the best damn cup of coffee on Earth, or anywhere else I’ve been since.” He looks wistful, now.

“Briefly, yes; you’ve mentioned.” He is startled by the question; reminiscence is not a pastime they engage in often. “Perhaps I’ll take you to Askenflatt Major. Best coffee in the universe, at least I thought so at the time. And yes, I think I can fix it. I've started. It's… not going to be pleasant, for a while, Jack, I'm sorry.”

Gazing mournfully at his empty cup, Jack says, “And _this_ muck all I have to fortify myself. Do I have time for breakfast?” His easy acceptance is, again, always, humbling.

“Yes, of course, it’s not as urgent as all that; we’re parked in the Vortex.” The Doctor leans into Jack a bit more. “And… I really need some sleep. It’s been days.” He hesitates, but if he is ever going to make up for how he has used Jack, starting now is a better idea than most he's had lately. “Will you stay with me?”

Now it is Jack who looks surprised. “Of course I will. Right now? Or breakfast first?”

“Have breakfast first, please.” His steady support, strong and sure, unbroken in spite of everything. How to preserve him that way, in the face of all that is to come for him?

 


	26. Mutual assistance pact

Jack's life becomes a strange kaleidoscope of pain and glimpses of an increasingly distraught Doctor, punctuated by the mundane business of life - he doesn't forgo showers if he can help it - and less mundane brief excursions outside the TARDIS. But mostly pain, and the Doctor. They have done it before, he knows, but his memories of that time are unclear and he prefers it that way. It is a great relief to him when he realises he has lost count of the deaths. Ever since the Doctor told him it had been six years, he has been unable to stop the count in the back of his head, each death, each hour lived, a running estimate of time the Doctor has lived in between. Now he doesn't know, and can't estimate, and increasingly forgets to try. It's better this way.

At first, the greater part of his lived hours are spent holding the Doctor while he sleeps, exhausted by his efforts but unable to find any peace alone. Jack keeps a stack of books by the bed, changing them out in the library in his spare minutes as he finishes them. It's not, by far, the worst way he has spent the time between deaths.

The Doctor is working with urgency, trying both to restore a future to the Sep and to patch the gaps left by the catastrophic collapse of their timelines. His activities when Jack is dead, as Jack understands it, usually consist of making changes to timelines, doing spot checks of the results, then retreating to the TARDIS and the Vortex to make plans and wait for Jack and the return of stability to his world. He seems to spend most of this time maintaining the TARDIS or roaming through it, trying to distract himself in the library, fixing gadgets in the storerooms, or, having given up on distraction, lying next to Jack, reading or tinkering. Sometimes, when he is particularly unwilling to give up Jack's presence again, the Doctor takes him out to do the spot checks with him, additional ones or just delayed Jack doesn't know. It is always interesting; it seems the Sep, possibly as a result of the extensive meddling, have developed a rudimentary time sense, and the Doctor and Jack are both fascinating phenomena to them. He enjoys seeing their culture develop in a kind of time-lapse; it's not linear, because the Doctor keeps making changes and Jack has seen many things that now never existed, but the general path of development is evident.

The people themselves are, he thinks, quite beautiful; humanoid in shape and somewhat reptilian in feature, with skin in shades from red to purple and feathery hair in a crest from forehead to shoulders. But he had had no luck making time with any of them, of any gender or social station, and it was starting to really bother him before the Doctor took pity on him, and a break from his glaring, to inform him of their time sense. In light of that, it's… inevitable, probably. Who but a Time Lord is arrogant enough to bed what Jack looks like to someone with eyes to see?

It doesn't stop Jack from flirting; far from it. The Doctor acting jealous is immensely entertaining.

It's not bad when they get back to the TARDIS, either; have to pass the time somehow. Dying, being dead, and being dragged back to life take up very little of _his_ time, after all, even if they do bookend everything else in pain. And as things continue in this way, the Doctor has more and more trouble making himself let go of him.

-+-+-+-

As the innumerable deaths roll on, there is a fatigue that starts to build in Jack. Neither unfamiliar nor unexpected, it is unwelcome; he doesn’t mention it to the Doctor in case it dents his resolve. It is a very slow poison, and he will eventually sleep for days, but not until there is time for it. Unable to imagine when that might be, Jack simply carries on.

His thick not-leather cuffs, ever present, have been more of a comfort to him again lately; he worries at them, rubs them instead of his hands when he is feeling anxious. They are part of him these days. He pushes hot coffee and tea cups around with them, and when he works on the TARDIS he uses them to move sharp bits or live wires out of his way without thinking about it. He has even caught himself biting at them in thought again, occasionally. He sometimes bites them during sex as well, but just as often it's the Doctor. It is an intensely grounding feeling, sight, for Jack; _anchoring_ , maybe. It helps, amid the disorientating whirl of short days and frequent deaths.

-+-+-+-

On one of his longer days, lying in bed after the Doctor works off some of his jealousy, Jack decides to venture a topic that he may regret. They have each been dealing with the issue separately, but having determined that the Doctor is largely sane and trustworthy again, Jack has begun to want a resolution. “You're still so careful with me.”

“Hmm?” The Doctor is sprawled over him, face tucked into his left shoulder.

“You still ask if it's alright, every time we have sex. And you're always holding back now, you don't…” He sighs, and nudges his lover with a wrist. “Look, Doctor, I'm still wearing your cuffs. It means something to me, though don't ask me exactly _what_. You've given me back my agency, my ability to consent, and that's vital, don't get me wrong. But right now, my life is in your hands, and I need… I need to know it's safely entrusted. I need to know that when you're in control, I'm safe. But you haven't even come close to _pushy_ lately, much less in control. Talk to me, please.” His lover has lost the relaxed sprawl now, contracted into himself, but his head is still on Jack's shoulder. Not running away; Jack has noticed he tries not to so much these days.

“I don't want to get carried away again,” the Doctor says lowly, a bit muffled.

Jack considers this. “Do you think you might?” He feels a nod against his shoulder. “Ah.” He pauses; he had thought they were past that concern. Not idle curiosity then, but a relevant question that needs an answer, and he jumps in with both feet. “Skipping the apologies, if possible, why did you, before?”

There is a long pause here, but there is no sign of the Doctor trying to leave, or deflect, or distract, so Jack holds his peace. The Doctor opens and closes his mouth a few times before he finally breaks his silence. His words are measured, bare explanation with no apology and, Jack understands, as little guilt as he can manage to express; it is clearly an effort. “There is nothing else like the thrill of possessing you, Jack. Knowing you’re mine, seeing the eternal flame in you bend to my will. Breaking the Fixed Point to my hand. I got carried away, started thinking… it was my right. I don't want to again.”

Jack is not immediately sure what to do with this, so he holds the Doctor close and kisses his hair. It is nothing he can help with, or do anything to change, unless the Doctor needs him to be more willing to fight back, a little extra push to remind him if he goes too far. Even in the short term that’s not a healthy relationship dynamic, but at times this is more like a mutual assistance pact than a relationship, and this may be one of those times.

“I'm yours.” He chooses his words carefully, as full of truth as he can make them. “But I'm mine first. _I_ bend myself to your will, because I love you, because I've chosen a place at your side. Please don't think I'm harboring any illusions about who you are; we've both done terrible things, and I choose to follow you anyway. Despite everything wrong here, Doctor, and despite my questionable mental state at times, I'm here because I want to be. I admit I'd prefer not to be broken again.” The Doctor is lying entirely still, maybe not even breathing; Jack kisses his head again. “I'm not sure how to help except promise to make sure you'll notice if you go too far. I won't be subtle.” He shakes his lover a bit in hopes of rousing him from his paralysis. “But you and I both know I've been provoking you terribly. I _like_ the possessiveness, I enjoy it. Please, if you can, give me the chance to surrender. Trust yourself enough to try.”

Sighing a great shuddering breath, the Doctor reaches up and lays a hand over Jack's heart. “You are so much more than I could ever own.”

Jack grins, then. Might be edging into a smirk. “I am, I believe, the sun in your sky.”

The Doctor jerks in surprise, tilts up to look at Jack, a dull flush rising in his face. “When did I… Did I? _Out loud?_ ” Jack is laughing at him now, humming his extemporaneous song. The Time Lord puts his head back down and groans. “I'm never going to hear the end of _that,_ am I?”

“I'm a wandering planet, I'm a wandering plaaa-net…” The Doctor stretches up to kiss him quiet, rests their cheeks together, and finishes in a whisper, “And you're the sun in my sky.”

-+-+-+-

When Jack ventures out of the TARDIS with the Doctor, it is very much as it was before, when he was broken; he follows a step behind and to the right, the loyal retainer. He kneels at the Doctor’s side when he has cause to stay still for long, because it pleases him to do so, and so the Doctor can lay a hand on his head or shoulder. At these times the feel of storm clouds remains about the Time Lord, and by the way the Sep scatter before him Jack thinks they are at least as psychic as humans tend to be. They see the Doctor as a god walking among them, and it amuses Jack to stage-manage their encounters; he won’t have his stern godling looking like a ninny standing there _holding his hand_.

He makes of himself a decorative fixture, because why wouldn’t he; wears soft leather boots dyed saffron that he picked from the TARDIS’s wardrobe, and the saffron trousers the Doctor prefers now, and only adds to it if the climate requires him to. On the restored planet Ep, where they visit most often, he rarely needs anything further. A few times he has been too obvious in his attempts to direct events to please his imaginary audience, and the Doctor gives him a quelling look, dark under his brows, a scowl with a hint of suppressed laughter. But as long as it’s not too obvious he allows Jack his amusement; there is precious little else of it in their lives right now.

Sometimes, Jack roams apart from the Doctor. Only briefly, and he doesn’t stray far, but it is nice to be on his own. He watches the people, and the sky. Ep has many flying creatures and he enjoys their freedom. He starts to hear whispers when he walks alone in the cities; laughs when he learns the Sep call the Doctor _the Fury_ until he remembers him burning, screaming; is utterly bemused when he discovers his own epithet is _the Chained God_. It is difficult for him to find out what, specifically, the stories say; it's not as if he can effectively disguise himself. Some people actually cover their eyes when he is near, as if that would help.

Eventually he asks a particularly fearless child. “Why am I chained? What do your stories say?”

She looks at him scornfully. “Don't you _remember?_ The Fury needed your power to remake the universe after he became tired of destruction. You wouldn't help, so he tricked you from your sleep and caught you and now he uses your power to make worlds that will never be destroyed.” Then, reminded of what she is speaking to, her bravery deserts her and she turns and runs.

Jack stands there, nonplussed. “Accurate enough,” he mutters eventually, “as these things go. From a certain point of view.” He doesn't tell the Doctor yet, but odds are he already knows, courtesy of awkward conversations in Jack's absence. He has heard plenty of stories of people, accidentally or otherwise, becoming known as gods on some primitive planet; this is neither the best nor worst legend he has heard, so he leaves it alone for now, contenting himself with its fair historical accuracy.

 


	27. Among other things

After an uncountable number of similar short days, Jack revives to an empty bed. This hasn’t happened for longer than Jack can put a word to, and he is halfway to the console room, running, before he notices that the TARDIS is calm and happy. The Doctor is here, uninjured, and in no distress; most likely finally tired enough to fall asleep on his own. Jack slows to a walk, but continues. Finding neither Doctor nor sign of misadventure, Jack makes sure they are in the Vortex, pats the console fondly, and continues his search.

He looks in the kitchen; no Doctor. He wanders through the library, but the Doctor is not on his favourite sofa nor any other. Jack is starting to become concerned again; he can’t possibly search the entire TARDIS. He's not sure the TARDIS _has_ an entirety.

“Show me where he is, please, sweetheart,” he implores her, and walks down the corridor till he reaches a familiar door that pulls at him. Opening it carefully, he finds the Doctor sprawled asleep in his shirtsleeves on the bed in the room Jack used to call his own. His boots are off, so at least it was intentional; Jack wonders how long he has been asleep. He is clutching the pillow tightly and snuffling a bit, not quite a snore, but he looks peaceful and Jack is loathe to wake him. Sending a thought of thanks to the TARDIS, he pulls the door closed softly behind him. “Let me know if he needs me.”

Hurrying back to the bedroom they share, he showers and dresses quickly, in dark blue trousers today. Doesn't bother with anything else, not when comforting the Doctor is all he will be doing for the next few hours. He goes to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, but as the water is boiling the TARDIS's song becomes distressed so he turns it off and rushes back to the Doctor. Jack can hear his cries before he reaches the door, indistinct, caught in some nightmare. He pushes the door open and runs to the bed, gathers the Time Lord in his arms; he quiets at Jack's touch. It is a little disturbing, the rush Jack gets from that. He doesn't _want_ this dependence, nothing about it has been good for either of them; and yet, how many people have ever been able to crook their finger and have _this_ man come running? Although, granted, it's Jack who does most of the actual running so far, that he has been alive to see. He holds on tightly until the Doctor wakes, an hour later.

“Jack?” Momentarily disorientated, the Doctor raises his head and looks around. “Oh, Jack. I can't do this anymore…” More than tired this time, he sounds ill, and looks dizzy even with Jack touching him.

Automatically reaching up to feel his forehead, Jack is no wiser; he still feels cool. “Are you sick?”

“No. Yes! I must be, to keep doing this!” He is clutching desperately at Jack now, burying his face below Jack's chin, trying to burrow in; increasingly frantic, he will be causing Jack actual injury soon if he doesn’t stop.

“Doctor!” Jack tries to push him back slightly, but he is holding on too tightly. “Doctor, I need you to calm down.” There is no response, and Jack prefers to avoid the Doctor’s tendency toward excoriating guilt when possible, so he grasps the Doctor’s wrists, shifts his hips to get a leg underneath him, and in one motion pushes the Doctor onto his back, pins his arms to the bed and comes down straddling his hips. It is a risk, but it’s better than watching the Doctor work himself into a fit and then discover he has hurt Jack again; at least it is an active way to get hurt.

Face bent close to the Doctor’s, Jack watches sense creep back into his eyes. “You can do it,” Jack says, from immense personal experience, “because you have to.”

The Doctor looks away. “I can't keep killing you, Jack, I can't keep playing god.”

Angry now, Jack snaps, “Yes, you can.” He knows this with absolute certainty, and despises being put in the position of confidante with _this_ of all doubts. Having to convince people to kill him is one of the most sickening aspects of his immortality, he has found, and he resents the Doctor for requiring it of him. He fills his voice with everything he has learned of the Doctor recently, all his experience with the Master in the past. “ _Time Lord_.”

The Doctor writhes like a snake, and Jack is suddenly on the floor, on his back with the wind knocked out of him. He climbs to his feet, grinning in challenge. “ _There_ you are.”

As he stands, the Doctor is flying at him; he usually just gets in people's faces, but now he backs Jack against the wall, hands on his shoulders, kicking his feet apart to put him off balance. His hair is mussed and his shirt is rumpled from sleep, but his eyes are wide awake and flashing with anger. “You dare! I am not like them! I am not _him!_ ”

“Oh, yes,” Jack breathes, “you are.” Catharsis, at last. He is a big proponent of a good fight to relieve stress, clear the air, and if he can get the Time Lord riled like this he doesn't have to hold back in the slightest. The Doctor generally denies it, but he benefits as well. Or maybe this is the first time for the Doctor, Jack doesn't care enough at the moment to think it through. “Arrogance as vast as the sky, and there's no one to stop you now, is there?” He shoves the Doctor, hard, and launches himself after.

“I don't need anyone to _stop me_ ,” the Doctor growls, and Jack hopes he's right. Though he tries, Jack finds himself unable to get a solid hold on the Doctor, who turns like quicksilver in his hands, and the Doctor is looking for surrender, not injury, which Jack won't give till he's ready. They will both have bruises, from the corner of the dresser, the side of the bookshelf, but although Jack is not holding back, the Doctor is, or it would be over even sooner.

Jack decides he has had enough when he finds himself again on the floor, laid out on his back with his opponent's knee pressed threateningly to his groin, forearm pinning his throat. The Doctor's ears are red and he is breathing heavily, but that look of horrified regret is starting to dawn in his eyes and that's not what Jack wants. “Not _victorious_ yet, Time Lord,” he taunts, voice raspy from the pressure on his throat. “Got plenty of fight left in me.”

“Stop it, Jack!” the Doctor cries, sounding somewhere between angry, confused, and desperate. “Take it back, I’m not like that!”

“You are.” It's not a truth he can or should avoid. He has always had this darkness in him. Jack shoves the arm a little bit off his throat so he doesn't pass out; that would be inconvenient after all this work. “You always will be. You’re the Doctor, and that is nothing simple. And I will always be,” he relaxes, lies still below the Doctor, finds a peace, finally, among his conflicting desires, “yours.” Tilts his head back and gives his surrender, and hopes the Doctor will take it; hopes the Doctor has noticed, as Jack has, that they are both uninjured. It was a test he had needed to make.

The Doctor blinks at him, says flatly, “Mine.”

Nodding carefully, Jack waits to see which way this falls. But the Doctor continues staring at him, face unreadable, and he decides one more push is necessary. Reaching for the Doctor's shirt buttons, he says, “I trust you, Doctor. Trust yourself.”

His hands are slapped away. Glancing back to the Doctor’s face, he is relieved to see it has been transformed; he is now peering down at Jack quizzically, head cocked, brows drawn together, and as Jack watches the expression slides into enlightenment. “Ohhh, I see.” Jack nods. The Doctor kneels up, thigh still at Jack’s groin but much less threateningly; he leaves a hand pressing gently on Jack’s throat. “Conniving wretch. Don't need someone to stop me… Very well, Captain, since you want it so badly. I'm afraid getting pummeled doesn't have quite the same effect on me, so you've got some work to do.” He eyes Jack consideringly. “Which doesn't bother you at all.” Jack isn't actually sure whether it is an observation or an order. “On your knees, Captain, and lose the trousers.” He takes a breath and pulls away from Jack entirely, and with that evidence that he can take care of himself right now, Jack's last reservation vanishes.

Jack has been waiting for this for all these fractured, desperate years, full and willing surrender to this man he trusts now, again, to care for him. He pulls off the trousers and rolls to his knees, hands behind his back, cuffs together, watching the Doctor, everything else sinking away as calm fills his mind like water.

Circling, the Doctor trails his left hand across Jack's throat, slowly unbuttoning his own shirt with his right. “Eyes front, soldier. Hands to yourself.”

The more the Doctor takes control of Jack's actions, the deeper he goes into that peaceful place inside, of trust and need and obedience, and no thought at all. He relaxes, chin tilted up, eyes half lidded, and leans into the Doctor's touch slightly. The Doctor's breath catches, and in a very different voice he says quietly, “I'm sorry, Jack, I've been neglecting you.”

Jack shakes his head minutely, but he has already gone too deep for any further response. He feels a very distant concern for how fast that happened, and they will talk about it later, but he can't possibly right now. He is fully occupied.

“You're prettiest when you're on your knees.” The Doctor's soft voice comes from behind him now. He can hear the rustle of fabric, sees nothing but the wreck the room is after their fight. “Exquisite.” Jack feels cool breath on his neck and shivers; then there is a hand on his cock, open palmed, pressing firmly, sliding down. He cries out involuntarily as all the air leaves his lungs at once, hips thrusting forward, eyes falling closed. The hand moves down to his balls and Jack stills; it is squeezing, tugging hard enough that he understands completely that he is owned, hard enough that his breath is coming in whistling pants through bared teeth. “You're mine, Captain, you've given yourself up to me, and I want you just - like - this.” The Doctor is shifting around, the extra movement making Jack whine through his teeth, but the Doctor's _wants_ carry even more weight with him than his orders at times like these and Jack is buoyed on a vast contentment that he is fulfilling his lover's requirements. He opens his eyes, glazed and unfocused, when the Doctor stops moving, and can see him now, knelt at Jack's right, shirt and boots off but still in his trousers.

“Touch yourself,” the Doctor orders, “I want to find out if you can come like this.” He still has Jack by the balls in an implacable grip, but he is watching him with a tender look as if he can _feel_ the peace he's giving Jack; maybe he can. Jack obediently circles his cock with his fingers, smoothing his palm over the head, starts gently with small movements of his foreskin. Balancing between pleasure and pain, doing the Doctor’s will, and feeling completely _safe_ for the first time in years, Jack moans freely. As his strokes lengthen and he is tugging at already painfully taut skin, the Doctor watches him hungrily but carefully, gauging his condition. He leans in to lick at Jack’s lips, and as his lover’s tongue enters his mouth Jack forgets for a moment and lets his hips rock forward, then jerks them back with a cry, and his rhythm falters. The Doctor nips his lip in remonstrance. “Keep going,” he instructs, careful in the goals he gives Jack whilst he is in this vulnerable state. “I want to see your best.” Then he resumes the kiss. Jack tries, he tries, but it's so much, the mouth on his, the steady pressure and constantly changing tugging at his balls, keeping his hips still as he works his leaking cock with increasing desperation, trying to outrun the pain with pleasure. It is a glorious, agonising, overwhelming cacophony of sensation and he's gasping, sobbing, when the Doctor finally decides he can't and stops him.

Sitting him back on his heels, the Doctor puts his arm around Jack’s shoulders to support him while he recovers; he has opened his trousers and is stroking himself absently while he waits. “So beautiful,” he murmurs, reassuringly. Jack lays his head against his lover and catches his breath, and thinks of nothing at all.

After a few minutes the Doctor carefully pulls him to his feet and steers him to the bed, arranges him on his front with knees drawn up, nothing touching his oversensitised cock and balls. Holding Jack's hand, he says quietly, “Give me any little sign if you want to continue, Captain.” Jack squeezes his hand, wanting anything the Doctor will give him, and feels a kiss on his forehead and a caress down his spine. He feels the bed dip, then slick fingers are pressing into him. He moans, high and breathy; after the last it is almost painful, and it takes him longer than usual to relax. “You're doing beautifully, Captain, just stay with me a little longer.” The Doctor strokes his back as he adds a third finger, and Jack returns to the depths and gives himself away entire to the tender care of his lover, his commander, his own lonely wanderer.

It all goes a little fuzzy after that, but he thinks he makes noise, maybe a lot of noise, as the Doctor’s cock breaches him, thrusting gently at first and then harder as his own need mounts. Jack pulls his arms under him so he can at least keep himself from sliding up the bed. Then there is a hand stroking his cock, gently cupping his balls; it's not painful anymore but shockingly intense and then he's coming, hearing gone and vision turning to confetti. He is about to give up and collapse when the Doctor finally groans in release and stops moving. They fall to the side together, and Jack doesn't move again for a long time.

He comes back gradually, by pieces. “Oh, fuck,” he moans, drawn out into a prayer.

“Among other things, yes, we did,” his own personal god replies against his back.

“Doctor.” Jack smiles and goes under again; all is right with the world.

When he returns, the Doctor has cleaned them up and put his own pants and shirt back on, and now has Jack tucked up against him as he reads in the bed. Jack was conscious of this going on, in a very detached way, but he is feeling much more present now. “Thank you,” he says, muffled by the Doctor's chest.

“You've already said that twice,” the Doctor caresses his shoulder, kisses his head, “but you're still welcome. I'm sorry I… was so stubborn. You apparently needed that badly.”

“Mmm. Why are we in here?”

The Doctor's hand stops on his back and Jack has the impression of a puzzled frown. “Because we just… I wasn't going to _carry_ you… _Ohh_ , you mean originally. This, ah,” he sounds a bit embarrassed, which is silly, it's his TARDIS. “This is where I sleep, if I have to before you come back. It still smells of you, a bit. More now, I suppose,” he adds, with wry humor.

“Alright,” says Jack peaceably, curiosity appeased.

There is a pause, and the Doctor's hand resumes its motion on his back. Jack waits. “Why did we fight?”

“Because I needed that, too. And so did you. Crippling self-doubt doesn't suit you. And because I wanted you, and I thought maybe if I showed you you wouldn't hurt me, you'd finally be ready.” He is still relaxed bonelessly against his lover's side, and he intends to stay here for some time, so he hopes the Doctor doesn't have any other plans for the day.

“You're very pushy, Captain.” The Doctor cranes his head and tilts Jack’s face up to catch his lips in a gentle kiss. “But sometimes I need that. Thank you.”

 


	28. Ever turning

Jack seems different after that, as if he has laid down some burden, as if some conflict has been resolved. The Doctor is glad to see it, but it is another line on the ledger of his soul, that he let Jack go without that relief for so long. His fragmented life of late has provided him little outlet for a great deal of stress, and the Doctor has been increasingly unable to deal with anything more than the next step, the next fix. But he no longer feels on the verge of collapse; even whilst finally forcing the Doctor to provide at least some of what he needed, Jack was still taking care of him. He does feel, however, that if the fire doesn’t consume him, the ever-increasing guilt eventually will.

But before that happens, he will do his best to set Jack back on his feet. Just as soon as he has these timelines rebuilt. He is nearing the end, he can _taste_ it, he can feel things settling into place around him. The dizzying maelstrom is gaining structure, waiting for the seed that will start the crystallization into a new stable configuration.

-+-+-+-

The Doctor is just finishing a quick check of the timelines when he realises Jack has wandered off again. He does that now, when he never used to; nearly singularly among companions he has had, come to think of it. Not that he is ever truly unaware of Jack's movements when watching timelines, they swirl and eddy around his Fixed Point in a way that has, at times, made the Doctor quite ill. It is rather as though a mountain were wading through the ocean. Very similar, in some ways, to what should be happening, but the frame of reference is all wrong and the vertigo can be terrible.

The time sensitive Sep are both fascinated and repelled by him. They stare, from a distance, and lately he has taken to wandering away from the cities and towns they visit. Which suits the Doctor fine; Jack's consistent ability to have all eyes on him leaves him simmering in possessive jealousy every time they go out. Not everyone they encounter is time sensitive.

Jack has gone further than usual this time. It is a new planet for them, a colony world called Shoudet, and they are in a mountainous area of cut valleys and yellow rock. The vegetation is lush but mostly low and drab, and it is easy to spot Jack at the top of a ridge. He is wearing against the chill a long brown coat that blends into the landscape, which, the Doctor realises after a moment, is a bit concerning, given his recent sartorial habits. As he makes his way up the rise, he can see Jack’s lips are moving, but even the Doctor’s excellent hearing can make nothing out against the steady wind. He finishes whatever it is before the Doctor arrives, but he thinks he hears “lost to time” at the end and is curious.

Standing next to Jack, looking out over the town below, he reaches his hand out to catch hold of his anchor, his steady support in the hash he’s made of local Time. “What were you saying?”

“Give me that unbridled sky,” Jack replies quietly, without looking down, “that vault of mist, that climb, to winds beyond the world's embrace; to dare the boundaries of space, that limitless and hollow sea; touch heavens lost to time.” He cuts a glance sideways at the Doctor, then. “I’ve been reading a lot lately, reminded me.”

The Doctor is reminded of Jack’s severely contracted view of life as he momentarily wonders how he could have been doing _anything_ a lot lately, and then has to stamp down, hard, on the urge to beg forgiveness again. He won’t get it, and Jack doesn’t want to hear it. Kicking a foot desultorily, he looks around to distract himself, but there really isn't anything up here. “Laida Lugar,” he identifies the poet. “Never well known, but rather fine. The era of space planes, wasn't it?” He doesn't wait for an answer. “Are you alright, Jack? It's a long walk up here.”

“I'm alright,” Jack says into the wind. “I need to get some air, sometimes. I was born by the sea, I’ve piloted spacecraft, flown fighter jets and space planes, seen more skies than I can count; I cloud sailed on Ophicche.” He grins, fleetingly. “Been told I'm good on roofs.”

Briefly diverted, as Jack probably intended, the Doctor wonders what he is good at _doing_ on roofs. Certainly he would make a stunningly attractive gargoyle, whilst remaining quite imposing. He wouldn't put it past his Captain to do a great many other things on roofs, as well. But still… “Why now? You haven't been in the habit of wandering far until recently.”

As Jack pulls his hand from the Doctor's, he is momentarily concerned, but then Jack threads his arm about his waist and pulls him close. Though they have no skin contact at all now, the Doctor leans in and cherishes the feeling of being _wanted_ ; Jack initiates touch often enough, but rarely more than what he knows the Doctor needs. “When your most pressing need is met, others come to the surface. I'm really alright, Doc.”

Filled with a giddy sense of achievement and grinning like a fool, the Doctor nevertheless feels he is expected to object to this. “Don’t call me Doc. Flyboy.” Jack laughs, he _laughs_ , the Doctor can’t remember the last time he _laughed_ ; how did he not notice the loss of that wry chuckle? Feeling as though several Christmases had come at once, the Doctor laughs too, wraps his arm around Jack's shoulders, fingertips curled under his collar, and feels the planet turning beneath them, ever turning, as they watch alien birds wheel in an alien sky.

-+-+-+-

In hindsight, it seems inevitable that they should fall into a situation that required their efforts on a less god-like scale; more baffling is the lack of them otherwise. It is a new laceration to his damaged soul, each time he discovers another way he has been not-the-Doctor in the past years. Life on the scale of individual lives has simply been… invisible to him. He may have forgotten for a while, but adventuring with Jack is still a brilliant way to spend the time. And he has always enjoyed visiting people's festivals and observing ceremonies; but not from front and center as the gods incarnate who just saved the planet, again. Nothing fun is ever available to the principal celebrants, just a lot of wordy business and formalities. He sends Jack off as soon as he can, and escapes not long after.

When the Doctor finds Jack, he is standing at the edge of the roof, looking out over the city. It is a bit of a thrill; it didn't take many falls to his death to make the Doctor wary of heights but Jack seems to _like_ it there at the edge, maybe it's escapism or just that the sudden stop at the end holds no fear for him anymore. He doesn't know, and he doesn't ask, because he can't help thinking, after all those eyes on him all day, there are probably _still_ eyes looking up here, wanting a piece of _his Jack_. It's been a slow burn all day, this possessiveness curling in his gut, driving him wild. Jack is his and he likes it that way, likes this about the Doctor. No need to hold back. Time to find out what his Captain likes about roofs.

He adjusts his trousers and fits himself against Jack's backside, pressing close to the steady solid heat of him, gripping hip with right hand and stroking slowly up bare chest with left. “Captain,” he says in greeting, just behind Jack's right ear, then traces the curve of it with his tongue.

Jack shivers against him. “Hello to you, too. Done for the night?”

“Mmm,” he agrees vaguely. “Won't help them again if they can't keep their eyes off you. You're _mine._ ” He bites lightly on Jack's ear, and Jack tips his head back with a sigh as the Doctor's hand reaches his throat.

“Yours,” he agrees, relaxing into the Doctor's hold. “You might have less of a problem if you dressed me properly.” They are still feeling their way to a new normal, carefully, but this mood is easy enough to read. Jack is very willing, and yet delightfully mouthy; he hasn't surrendered yet. After the day they've had the Doctor thinks surrender is probably not on the table, but willing is what's wanted, here.

“You like my problem,” the Doctor growls, and slips his right hand under the waistband of Jack's trousers. The trousers, and nothing else, that Jack chooses himself for these excursions.

Jack grinds his arse lazily against the Doctor's cock as he strokes him to hardness. “I _am_ your problem. You sure you want to do this here?” He is asking for the Doctor's benefit; Jack doesn't mind a bit of exhibitionism, in general.

“That was a terrible comeback. I'm the clever one here, Captain, and don't forget it.” Maybe it was a decent comeback considering his current position, and true besides, but the Doctor isn't about to admit any such thing. “I’ve waited all day, endured all those people staring at you, now they can all have their boring party and go home to their insipid little lives and I won't wait _any longer_.” He pulls Jack firmly against him with the hand caressing his throat, and Jack willingly lays his head back onto the Doctor's shoulder, uncaring of his safety here at the edge of the roof. Or, terrifyingly more likely, completely trusting in the Doctor's care of him. It does strange things to the Doctor's insides to contemplate the trust Jack shows him on a daily basis. After all he has done, is still doing, the Doctor knows he deserves none of it, but the attempt to earn a small portion of it keeps him busy. He moves them two steps back from the edge, just to be sure.

Jack smiles against his jaw, nips at the sensitive skin there, his breath hot against the Doctor's face. The roll of his hips as the Doctor jerks him off is a constant distraction, and soon he has to move his left hand from where he is pinching Jack's nipple, down to grasp his hip and hold him still so he can rut against him properly. Or maybe it's improperly; the Doctor's lips twitch up in a smile. Jack has that effect on him. Suddenly he finds himself pulled even closer. Jack has finally found something to do with his hands, latched them into the Doctor's trouser pockets and he groans and loses his rhythm on Jack's cock.

“Oops,” Jack says cheerfully, and the Doctor is sure he's grinning, the insufferable chimp. He is still relaxed back against the Doctor, not trying to take control, just having fun, but he's not going to let him _win_ like this, that need for possession is still driving him. So right there, at the edge of the roof, probably in view of the same people who have been viewing them all day long, the Doctor spins Jack around, pulls the tie on his trousers and lets them fall, and sinks to his knees before him to take his cock in his mouth.

“What, _oh_ gods,” Jack moans, caught by surprise. The Doctor hums in a very satisfied way, which gets him another moan and Jack's hands, settling tentatively on his head and shoulder. Jack is very close to orgasm, which is good because the Doctor forgot that roofs are not made to be comfortable on the knees, but damned if he'll change his mind now. He quickly opens his trousers and takes his own erection in hand.

It is intoxicating having Jack like this, like swallowing the sun, the furnace-hot physical heat filling his mouth combining with the burning solidity of the Fixed Point in his other senses into something greater than either. It reminds him that Jack is so much more than he can possess, and yet chooses to call himself possessed; it is humbling, and it is ecstatic, and it is more than he can bear sometimes, but that doesn't stop him. Nothing stops him, until Jack is shouting above him, fingers twisted in his hair, coming in hot spurts over his tongue. He waits until Jack's fingers unclench, then pulls away gently, and with a few more strokes of his hand he is coming too, on his knees with Jack's name on his lips and the taste of him in his mouth.

Then Jack is bending down to kiss him languorously, tongue making a slow exploration, tasting himself too. He smiles, pulls his trousers up and holds out a hand to haul the Doctor to his feet. He is not sure he can stand, just yet, delays a minute to pull out a handkerchief and clean himself up, fasten his trousers. Then he lets Jack pull him up. It works alright, with Jack there to catch him.

And isn't that the story of his life, recently.

He doesn't care if, as they leave, there are a few more people who won't meet his eye. Just let them keep their eyes off Jack as well and he will be well served.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _With a grateful nod to such_heights, for a lovely fic with a title I couldn't get out of my head:[Give Me That Unbridled Sky.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21446)_


	29. With great intent

After the Doctor's moment of exhibitionism, the legends of the Chained God that reach Jack's ears whilst he wanders are somewhat different. In the next version he hears, a century on, the Chained God had loved the Fury, and his lover had trapped him and made that love into cuffs on his wrists and a chain on his heart and built the worlds upon his back.

On a small planet orbiting a gas giant ninety light years away, three hundred years on, the Chained God had forged the chain himself, and offered it up on the altar of his admiration of the beauty of the Fury. It seems to be generally regarded as blasphemy, and the entire colony apostates, but Jack appreciates the truth as he sees it and, as they are leaving, draws the Doctor aside. Under the drooping canopy of a great grey-and-yellow tree, he makes love to the Doctor, wringing every beautiful noise from his throat that he can. He wants no doubt left in anyone's mind which of them is lover here, and which beloved, and feels like all the ways he makes the Doctor cry his name have accomplished his goal admirably. As they leave, the Doctor somewhat confused but too giddy to care, Jack looks back toward their unseen watchers with satisfaction.

Let them make legends of _that_.

He hears in one city that the Chained God was not captured, but sacrificed his freedom willingly to hold the Fury in check. Most altars are dedicated to him, here, and Jack stands before one, something twisting in his gut that he can't put a name to. He wants to smash it, he wants to laugh, he wants to run away and forget everything. Eventually he smiles bitterly and turns away, and doesn't leave the Doctor's side again until they return to the TARDIS.

After he hears the version where the Fury loved the Chained God so deeply he went mad when the God tried to leave, Jack stops listening. He knows better than to confuse addiction with love.

-+-+-+-

As the fatigue settles into Jack’s bones, he holds on ever more strongly to the hope that the Doctor is correct when he says they are nearing the end. He can’t see it himself, except in the fact that they visit an ever-widening variety of worlds, but he trusts. He knows this about himself now: that his trust in the Doctor is more fundamental than his trust in gravity, and losing it sets him adrift in the darkness. The Doctor will not be there for all his long life, but he has traveled so extensively he will never truly be gone, either. It is enough for Jack, for now.

In the meanwhile, the Doctor is breaking himself on the wheel of his increasingly conflicting needs despite everything Jack can do. He is driven by the need to set right what he has broken, above all; which forces him, allows him, to feed his addiction to the power he takes from Jack; which in its absence, leaves him increasingly lost and clinging to Jack; which makes Jack his prisoner, whatever the degree of willingness; and as they try to rebuild, in the moments between, their relationship of equals, the guilt is eating him alive when he comes back for his next dose of the poison that burns the pain out of him just briefly.

Jack can't fix it, only survive it, again and again and again. One foot in front of the other, into infinity. The Doctor, he believes, will survive it as well. He practices belief these days like other people practice medicine; with great intent and constant striving for improvement.

-+-+-+-

When the end comes, it is nothing sudden, just a slow failure of will. With both of them exhausted, their time together is longer but often spent asleep or just clinging to each other. The visits to check timelines have become more cursory; the Doctor says things are slotting together as they should be. Showers and cooking and eating they fit in as they can, and their infrequent lovemaking has acquired a shadow of desperation.

It has been a busy day: a shower, two quick checks of timelines, eating, sleeping, and eating again. Back in bed again after, Jack is curled around the Doctor, holding him whilst he battles his demons in silence. Since the day they fought, since Jack's world returned to its proper axis, the Doctor has not tried to burden Jack with his guilt again. He is still not interested in hearing about it, though he won't be angry again if it happens; there is very little else he can do for the Doctor now than be a sympathetic audience. Tired of all his options but especially tired of silence, Jack buries his nose in the Doctor's silly, floppy hair and breaks it. “We'll get through this.” His first and foremost article of faith.

“I told you what happens when people have faith in me,” the Doctor replies darkly, lost in what hopeless considerations Jack doesn’t know.

But Jack just holds him tighter. “That doesn't work on me, Doctor. I’m no child; I wasn’t a child when I met you. I’ve seen you at your best, and at your worst, brave and cowardly, in rage and joy and grief and hope and despair, crippled by your past and rising above it all. I’ve hated you and I’ve been broken by you and I’ve loved you through it all. I’m seven hundred years old.” He smiles, even as he feels the fine tremors that have begun to shake the Doctor’s body. “This is not the kind of faith that requires anything of you. It’s the kind you can move mountains with.”

With a strangled sob, the Doctor twists in his arms and buries his face against Jack's chest, arms tucked in and hands splayed against him, entirely contained within Jack's embrace. He is silent thereafter, though the tremors continue.

With a resignation he takes care not to express, Jack gives permission: “Say it.”

“I can't do it,” whispers the Doctor, brokenly.

Rubbing his lover's back slowly, Jack tries to think of something helpful to say. “Which part?” He gives an admonishing squeeze. “And we both know _all of it_ isn’t true.”

Another pause as the Doctor edits his response. “I can't let go of you. _Please_ don't make me,” he adds wretchedly. “I can't.”

It is still unclear to Jack how he might go about forcing the Doctor to do anything he truly wanted not to do, but the fact that the Doctor thinks he could is telling. No longer the Time Lord Victorious, no god of galaxy-wide faith, the man in his arms is only himself, bounded by his own skin, battle-weary and scarred. He kisses the Doctor's head, folds the arm pillowing him up around his shoulders, and splays his other hand across the back of the Doctor's waist, pulling him close, as close as he can. “You don't have to yet,” he murmurs, no promise, no safety he can offer from this, only a delay of the inevitable.

They rest again, for how long Jack doesn't know. Neither of them sleep.

When Jack tries to get up to use the toilet, the Doctor doesn't let him go. Perhaps truly can't. “I just need a piss, I won't be a minute,” he points out, to no avail. He tries to pry the Doctor's hands from his arms but as well try to bend steel. Instead the Doctor gets up and comes with him, silently, looking chagrined but determined. This is definitely worse than it has been.

Back in bed the Doctor tries to spoon up behind Jack but he's having none of it; imagines them mouldering here, growing moss as they never again move from the spot, held fast by the Time Lord's desperate grip, immobilised by his failure of will. Jack has willpower remaining, hopefully enough for the questionable gambit he has conceived. He arranges them face to face instead, so he can look into the Doctor's desolate eyes, kiss his lips, caress the face whose planes and angles have been all his world for so long.

Once, long ago, back at the beginning when this was all new and the Doctor still felt joy in the Universe and excitement at what he might do, he had told Jack, _This would be much easier if you could share your fire with me, instead of my having to take it._ Jack had some issues with the Doctor's choice of words, there being no particular imperative that he could tell, but semantics hadn't mattered much at the time. _I don't think the will to live has an off switch,_ he'd said, and that had been the end of it. But dimmed and dented as it is now, perhaps he can find the pause button. Jack has, on rare occasion, managed to share that spark of life in him with others, to heal and even to revive. It doesn't take of him what the Doctor needs, but if he can get it started perhaps it won't be hard to hold the conduit open; or, failing that, perhaps long habit will make the Doctor take the rest once he has a taste.

As Jack reaches for that Vortex-driven spark at the base of him, that immortal flame of such immense fascination, he does his best to distract the Doctor, afraid he might sense what he is doing and stop him. He tangles their legs together, runs his hand up the Doctor’s spine and down again to cup his arse, his lovely arse that for once Jack has no designs on whatsoever. Kisses him deeply, and feels him begin to respond. Jack grabs hold of the fire he’s fanned, stokes it to a fever pitch, and _pushes_ with every bit of will remaining to him.

A pained cry breaks from the Doctor’s throat, muffled at first by Jack’s mouth but then he pulls away. “No! No!” He’s shaking Jack. “Stop, you have to stop, stop it! Jack!” His face is drawn in horror, he sounds utterly panicked, but Jack keeps pushing.

“Finish it,” he grits out; he doesn't know or care whether it is a reasonable request.

The Doctor’s eyes are taking on that terrible fire despite his tears and Jack can feel the storm building. He has lost control of his body now but his will remains, he will _see this through_. Crushing Jack to him, the Doctor pleads, “Stop, Jack, please stop, don’t leave me! _Please_ don’t leave me, don’t go, _don’t go!_ ” It is a painfully bittersweet success, but he is beyond stopping now. He feels his will draining away at the last, and then knows no more.

Jack revives alone. As he is trying to muster the energy to seek out the Doctor and find out what went wrong, the TARDIS sends him an unusually clear impression: _wait/rest/abide_. Jack waits.

He is just sitting up in bed when the storm descends upon him. Then he hears booted footfalls, running full tilt toward the bedroom, and the Doctor's voice calling, “Jack!? Jack!” A hand grabs the doorframe and the Doctor catapults inside, veiled in clouds, the smell of lightning about him, sparks of gold in his wide wild eyes. He fetches up at the foot of the bed, gasping for breath, staring at Jack with a blank shock that begins to turn to fearful hope before he speaks. Too baffled by the Time Lord's dramatic entrance to find a response, Jack continues waiting, staring, arms braced behind him.

“Jack.” It sounds like a prayer. “It's only been _fourteen hours_.”

 


	30. Soonest ended, soonest mended

Furious, Jack is making a severely curtailed attempt at pacing; the Doctor won’t let go his hand. “I said _no_ , Doctor! I said, _never do that again!_ You didn’t see yourself last time!”

After interrupting it with his unscheduled resurrection, he had accompanied the Time Lord on his last timeline change of the day. As before the Doctor had held to him throughout, thankfully neither breaking Jack’s hand nor burning out his own mind; Jack had _really_ not been keen on the idea. And then upon their return to the TARDIS, this… insanity.

Funny, he had seemed less mad, lately.

The Doctor tries again, from his perch on the jumpseat in the console room. “It’s not having you along that made it dangerous, Jack, it was holding onto it so long. I waited fifty two hours that time for you to come back, and yes, it nearly consumed me. But _fourteen_ hours, I can do fourteen hours, it’s perfectly safe.”

“Rrrragh!” Frustration escaping like steam through his clenched teeth, Jack tries to whirl threateningly on the Doctor but his hand, caught fast, throws him off. “Let go of me or I swear I’ll cut that hand off and you can have it, for whatever good it is.”

The Time Lord’s jaw drops and he looks like Jack has just kicked his favourite puppy. “But…” He visibly steels himself, peers dolorously up at Jack to make sure he is serious, sets his teeth, and then actually uses his other hand to pry his fingers away. Sitting on his hands, he watches Jack without blinking.

“ _Thank_ you. And don’t ever say the phrase ‘perfectly safe’ again.” Jack paces now, not going far but feeling infinitely freer. “It won’t be fourteen hours, Doctor. I can’t recreate that kind of willingness, and now that you think you have a solution it won’t even be my will driving it. It’ll be days again, and I’ll wake up and you’ll be dead!” Abruptly the anger runs out of him and he falls back against the console, staring at the Doctor, fear gnawing at his guts with all its sharp teeth. “You’ll wait for me, and you’ll burn,” he swallows convulsively, “and you’ll die.”

The Doctor stands and steps toward him, hand tentatively outstretched; his expression has turned to that earnest entreaty that breaks Jack’s heart every time, and Jack knows he’s doomed, they’re doomed, everything is doomed because he _can’t resist_ , he still can’t stop the Doctor. He turns away, braces his arms on the console and shuts his eyes.

Wool-clad arms wind around him as the Doctor gathers him into his arms. “Jack, my Jack,” his lover whispers, as he gently coaxes Jack to turn back to him. “I won't leave you like this.”

Jack gives in and tucks himself into the Doctor's jacket, face pressed to his shoulder. “Anwylyd,” he returns, an endearment in a language otherwise dead in his timeline. “You had better not.”

-+-+-+-

As they drink coffee together, fingers entwined, Jack tries to restore his damaged belief. He holds close the visit on Ophicche from the older Doctor, the one who told him that he must believe they make it through, down to his bones. As he thinks about it, he realises that what the Doctor has now asked him to do will be impossible if he _doesn't_ believe they make it through; but if he does, if he can believe strongly enough to willingly give over the entirety of the flame he carries within him once more… maybe the Doctor is right, and one more effort will finish it, if he can have Jack there, the steady point from which stability will flow.

Jack is glad he has been _practicing_ ; belief is hard.

When they shower, Jack tries with all his considerable skill to distract them from the task at hand, not sure whether he is trying to dissuade the Doctor from his plan or himself from what he has to do. As he is kneeling in the warm spray, the Doctor winds his fingers through Jack's hair and pulls lightly to stop him. “Who are you trying to distract?” he asks.

“Both of us,” Jack answers, truthfully, and the Doctor pulls him up and kisses him hard, backing him into the wall. He gives Jack a gift, then, as he gathers his wrists and pins them above his head, leans in till their bodies are flush together to whisper, “Mine,” in Jack's ear. He bites down, moves on to Jack's throat and the base of his neck, then returns for another possessive kiss. Thoroughly distracted, Jack relaxes into trust, into belief, into the deep and steady faith he holds in the man who holds him. He moans happily in his captivity, and as the Doctor brings them both to orgasm, held together in his hand, Jack finds his doubt has faded and all that remains is belief and that deep truth: where the Doctor goes, there he follows.

Jack comes with a joyful shout, and when the Doctor releases his wrists they lean together in the warm water. “Better?” the Doctor asks, then snorts indelicately in an attempt to clear his face of the water streaming down from his hair. When Jack laughs, he looks immensely pleased with himself.

“Much better,” Jack promises.

The Doctor kisses him, a quick brush of lips. “You do have a tendency to work things out through sex.” He reaches for the soap to get back to the original purpose of the shower.

“That's… not wrong,” Jack admits. “Just how I work. Haven't heard you complaining.”

“Nor will you,” the Doctor assures him, handing him the soap and moving under the water; but he keeps his foot pressed up against Jack's.

Because he knows, he _knows_ , damn the anxious twisting in his stomach, that he will be going out into an uncertain situation with the Doctor when he revives, Jack dresses in his saffron boots and a white shirt in addition to his usual trousers. The Doctor, as always, dresses fully, aside from the green coat which he lays aside. It feels as though they are arming for war. A strange war where they begin by lying in bed, admittedly, but it is better than hauling around a corpse. Of everything that has happened, Jack has never questioned the bed. Though why the Doctor's own bed, he has never been quite sure. He considers asking, but like so many others things, it is irrelevant in this moment.

The Doctor is lying with his eyes closed, swallowing thickly as if fighting down nausea, and Jack realises, “It hasn't been long enough. We can't do this yet, Doctor, look at you.” He has one hand under Jack's cheek and the other holding tightly to one of Jack's hands, and if it is this bad now, after the brief separation to get dressed, he will be lost when Jack is dead.

“It doesn't truly get any better, anymore,” the Doctor replies, eyes still closed but voice surprisingly normal. “Once this is done, when the timelines settle, I'll be right as rain. It's the holding it all together. Soonest ended, soonest mended.”

Jack, watching him, has the unpleasant impression that he is attempting to convince himself, and that every seeming improvement from yesterday is solely down to the hope that has been reintroduced. The TARDIS's hum is steady and reassuring, maybe even encouraging. Courage would be a help. “This is your last best idea then, isn't it.”

Opening one eye, the Doctor half-smiles at him. “Oh, you know me, Jack, never a plan. Certainly it's today's best idea.”

Jack sighs and lays back. It's not that dying bothers him, anymore. It's that, cognizant of the unconsciousness and delirium after the last time he waited for Jack to revive, of the addictive effect on the Doctor, of the time he will spend waiting, burning, of the real chance he will die, Jack has to summon up a perfect willingness to inflict this upon his lover. “I can't do this if I'm afraid you'll wait for me until it kills you,” he points out, laying his forehead against the Doctor's. “How long is safe?”

“I won't wait longer than twenty hours,” the Doctor promises, and Jack doesn't believe him but it will have to do. He is realising he doesn't believe this Doctor at all, today, for the purposes of saving the universe which is a very different question than his own personal wellbeing; but now he's not sure about that either and it's a jagged chasm opening in his heart and if he falls…

“Brave heart, Jack.” The Doctor's voice is gentle, and he is watching Jack, earnestly concerned, and _damn_ the man, anyway!

With the infusion of anger at the Doctor's manipulation Jack finds he can do it after all, can put an end to this for both of them, can inflict this one final time on this man who is not quite yet the man he trusts to lead him back _out_ of hell. He follows the Doctor from his timeline who returns his trust, and the future Doctor who cares enough to interfere in his own past to give him faith in himself, as he draws up the flame in him to a raging inferno. Clenching his teeth against the pain, he reaches up to lay his hand against the Doctor's pale, drawn face, and _pushes_ , letting his anger and fear, faith and hope, carry him forward. The Doctor is holding him bruisingly tight, strangled words escaping him: “No, please… don't _leave me!_ ” and Jack realises he truly is caught in his own trap, Jack's strength and faith in him the only way out. He throws this man who is so many things to him to the fire of his own making, and lets go.

-+-+-+-

Jack revives with a heaving gasp and a sense of urgency, still incensed by the ease and completeness with which the Doctor manipulated him. He is at first relieved by the howling storm surrounding him, then terrified as he hears the clanging toll of the Cloister bell. He pushes himself up with a groan and drags himself from the bed, stumbling at first but gaining speed as he heads for the console room.

The Doctor is pacing there like a caged lion, around and around, and yelling at the TARDIS. “Turn that thing off! I'm fine, you're fine, Jack's fine, everything's fine!” But there is no answer, and the bell keeps tolling.

Narrowly avoiding a very undignified descent of the stairs, Jack plants himself in the Doctor's way, grabs his shirt in a fist rapidly regaining strength, and snarls, “How long?”

“Sixteen hours, everything is _fine!_ ” It's another damned lie but there's no time. He spins the mad Time Lord around, plants his hand on the back of his neck, and, ignoring the gasp of relief this wrings from the Doctor, propels him out the door.

They are back on Ep where it all started, Ep of the Sep race who once made themselves masters and eventually executioners of this galaxy with a ruined paradox machine, then were pulled out root and branch by the Doctor who rebuilt them painstakingly into something different, something that he hopes can hold the timelines together safely. In times past he has claimed to believe in self-determination, but here he has played god indiscriminately, drunk on power and never really stopping to see the individual lives he affects. Jack is far from blameless in this, he is beginning to understand. But it is a problem for another day.

It is far in the future from where they started, the world is old and the suns are larger and redder than Jack has seen them. It’s not what he expected. “Why are we, uh, now? That’s an awkward sentence,” he mutters in an aside. “At this end of the timestream, I mean.”

“That’s not how time works, Captain.” That extra resonance in the Doctor’s voice makes everything sound like a pronouncement, and despite his wildly conflicting feelings Jack finds room for a bit of amusement as he anticipates the next proclamation, complete with gestures. “It's not some kind of flowchart, here to there, it’s more sort of a wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey -” Jack snorts, and the Doctor glares at him. “- _mess_. Well I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself! Some of us have work to do.” He stalks off, but not before snagging Jack’s hand in a vise-like grip. Jack, perforce, follows. “No subtlety needed here, it’s all ready to crystallize. Just a good hard knock and it will all solidify. Or, or! like carving channels with a flash laser, we have a good vantage point here, get it all lined up…” He is babbling again, as far as Jack is concerned.

“So do it, and be done.” Interrupted, the Doctor gives Jack a wounded look. “Look, there’s some urgency here, Doc.” He returns his free hand to the back of the Doctor’s neck. “You’re anchored. Get on with it.”

“If you insist.” The Doctor straightens, and his expression turns inward, serious and searching. The golden fire blazes again, leaps from his skin, trails from his hands, gathers about them until Jack can see nothing but gold, shifting and seething. He breathes out sharply and gold suffuses the world, racing away in a way Jack won’t ever be able to describe, and he watches the terrible beauty of it until the Doctor stiffens in his arms.

“No! _No!_ ” He yells, screams, burning eyes wide. “Where are your gods of mercy, Jack? I tried so hard!”

“We were the gods here, Doctor.” Jack watches the last change sweep through the sky, watches it go dark as the suns die, watches stars go out, one by one, a decimation more horrible than any he has seen or imagined. “And we had no mercy.”

As the fire fades from the Doctor's eyes, their own sky begins to burn. He sways on his feet, clinging to Jack's hand, and gasps, “Back to the TARDIS, Captain, run!” Then he passes out cold, landing with a thump.

“This is familiar,” Jack groans, then slings the Doctor over his shoulder and runs.

 


	31. Right as rain

At first Jack paces, back and forth, back and forth, before the bed in which he laid the unconscious Doctor, stripped to pants and shirt, tucked in carefully. Then the freedom of movement goes to his head and he wanders, familiar rooms and less familiar rooms, miles of corridors, trusting the TARDIS to take him back if the Doctor needs him. He goes to the garden where the Doctor came to him as petitioner instead of master; the flowers are no longer blooming and nothing looks familiar. He goes to the library, and finds books still piled where he expects them, covered in dust. He finds a room where he can sit at the edge of a cliff and watch clouds pass below him, and spends an hour trying to sort out his thoughts. As angry as he was, is, with the Doctor, it's not the primary issue now; the first thing to deal with is whatever trauma the Doctor has suffered from the backlash of the timelines settling. Most of it should be sorted by sleep, for a Time Lord, but Jack still worries. Worry is a state of being for him anymore, it seems.

After that, the question is whether or not the Doctor is now capable of voluntarily letting go of Jack. If not, he can expect increasingly erratic behavior from the Doctor as withdrawal sets in, because Jack doesn't intend to feed his addiction to the fire again for any cause. But if he _can_ let go… remembering the Doctor's initial descent into dispassionate investigation of the underpinnings of Time and the universe, and the crimes he committed against his pet Fact in its pursuit, Jack prefers the other option. He won't be made a pet of again, and he doesn't want to be a prisoner. And he will need some sleep soon.

Still without any sort of plan but feeling a bit better about it, Jack gets up from the cliff and returns to the corridors. He heads with vague intent toward the kitchen and finds coffee waiting for him. Pouring himself a mug, he raises it in a toast to the TARDIS. “Thank you, darling. You are the best.” She hums contentedly, but Jack feels a push toward the door and follows with his coffee. She leads him to the Doctor's bedroom; perhaps he has been gone long enough. The Doctor looks unchanged, hasn't moved that Jack can tell. Nursing a sudden horrible thought, he twitches aside the bedclothes and examines the Doctor's skin, but there is no hint of golden light remaining. Jack sighs in relief, rubs his face, then pulls the blankets back over the Time Lord, careful not to touch him; he would rather find out what state he is in without confounding factors.

Jack settles in a comfortable chair across the room that has seen very little use lately, with the Doctor's constant need for Jack's anchoring effect, and finishes his coffee. Then, lacking anything obvious to do, he falls back on habit and heads for the shower. Showers take up, percentage-wise, a huge part of his time, but it turns out days-old clothes are not improved simply by having been dead whilst wearing them, and it makes him feel less like some kind of zombie.

When he is done and standing in front of the wardrobe, Jack finds himself baffled as to what to wear: because they're _done_. The task they have nearly destroyed themselves completing is finished, terrible though its conclusion may be, and it is time for a change in focus. He opens drawers randomly, but the TARDIS has no answers for him. After another check of the Doctor, he makes his way to his old room, tidied since they wrecked it with fighting and fucking. Eventually he settles on black trousers, with a fly and buttons thank you very much, and a lightweight long sleeve blue jumper, which he thinks may have belonged to his first Doctor. He does not speculate regarding its appearance in his dresser; it's a gift he is glad to accept, whether or not he is recalling correctly.

Jack doesn't remember his cuffs until he is having trouble settling the sleeves, he is so used to them. Arms held in front of him, he considers his options. The idea of summarily cutting them off makes him a little queasy; he's not _rejecting_ the Doctor, just… changing the rules a bit. He leaves them for now, turns up the jumper sleeves; they will talk about it later, together.

The TARDIS nudges him with some urgency then, and he takes off at a run but finds the Doctor's bedroom door just across the corridor from his own. He still hasn't moved, but his breath is now coming in quick, shallow pants and his face is paler than usual. As Jack draws closer, the Doctor whispers, “Jack? Jack, you're here, come here, please.” He perches on the edge of the bed and lays his hand on his lover's forehead; the Doctor moans piteously at the contact. Whatever state he is in, it’s not good, but it doesn’t look dangerous to Jack in any case.

“I'm here, Doctor. You look like you're going to throw up, do you need the bin?” Jack shifts his weight preparatory to getting back up but the Doctor flails an arm wildly in his direction; it is caught under the duvet.

“If you go, I _will_ throw up,” he groans, then extracts his hand and grabs hold of Jack's, pressing it to his forehead.

Jack sighs. “You said you'd be right as rain once the timelines settled.”

The Doctor cracks open one bloodshot eye to peer up at Jack. “I… may have been extrapolating in advance of the data. Somewhat. Oh, Jack. It… wasn't what I'd hoped.” He lets out a weary sigh, and his eye falls closed again. Then it opens again, wider, and he regards Jack in confusion. “Is that… are you wearing my jumper?”

Jack knows a distraction when he sees one, but the Doctor is starting to look less nauseated which can only be good, so he goes with it. “Might be. The TARDIS gave it to me.”

“No one ever liked the jumpers,” the Doctor mutters to himself, closing his eye again. “Jumpers aren't cool.” His breathing has slowed and he is a bit less pale, but he is still clinging to Jack's hand and making no unnecessary movements. Not that clinging to Jack's hand is at all different from any other day.

“I like them,” Jack replies patiently. He swings his legs up into the bed, turning to sit against the headboard, leaves his hand on the Doctor's forehead. He can feel the Doctor relax at this evidence that he is staying; his breathing slows further and his head turns slightly toward Jack, grip losing some of its strength.

“You saw, Jack? So many stars…” He is nearly whispering again, but not from physical discomfort; it is deep grief, Jack suspects, and he would be raging if he had any energy left at all. “Everything I've done, all the blood and fire and death, all for nothing. They called me a god and I destroyed them.” Louder, his voice is pained. “Twice! I fixed the paradoxes they destroyed themselves with. Why _shouldn't_ taking away the cause be enough to take away the effect?”

“Because,” Jack says gently, “you aren't a god.” He traces the Doctor's brow with his thumb, down his nose and back up. Doesn't offer his personal view of the man next to him; it's not relevant and somewhat tarnished at the moment besides. Manipulation is stock-in-trade for the Doctor, and is beyond classic for addicts, but that doesn't actually make him feel better when it is himself on the receiving end; it’s not meant to be a part of their relationship. It was the overuse of those damned puppy eyes that clued him in to the pattern of behavior over the day, but much more painful was the deliberate use of power in sex to evoke Jack's deep trust in the Doctor, and the misuse of that trust in the service of his addiction. Having reached a wall he couldn't tear down, no longer able to to push Jack away for any prize, the Doctor had caught the scent of another way to touch that flame and pursued it without moderation. To be fair, his motives are as confused as Jack's feelings; it seems likely there really was no other way. But it has damaged Jack's trust, again.

He is feeling increasingly fractured, and realises he needs to sleep _soon_.

“No,” the Doctor is saying. “Certainly not one anyone would want, in any case. I've looked into the heart of Time as _no one_ ever has before, and still couldn't get it right.” He is morose, verging on self-pity now, and Jack really doesn’t have time for it at the moment.

He cuts in, trying to triage before he falls unconscious. “Doctor. What’s wrong with you?”

There is a pause, then the Doctor says, hesitantly, “I don’t know, exactly. It all fell away from me, and there were so many endings, and everything feels very… empty. There’s a, a hollowness. I don’t know.” He frowns, without yet opening his eyes.

“Vertigo? Nausea? Disorientated?” Jack tries. “Any pain?”

“Headache. Disorientated, yes. Nausea has gone, vertigo is… going, but I expect if you let go of me… please don't let go of me…” He swallows sickly, but finally opens his eyes. “Not just yet. And I feel as though I may shatter if I move, which is very unpleasant.”

“It sounds awful.” Jack gives his debilitated lover a half smile. “It's too bad we can't just kill you and fix it that way.”

“Well technically -” the Doctor begins, then realises. “Oh, it's a joke.” The corners of his mouth quirk up but he seems to think it is of dubious merit.

Jack smiles for real then; he loves that particular expression, which is lucky because a surprising number of his jokes inspire it. “If I can't joke about it with you, then who? But I'm afraid you're stuck with more mundane solutions this time. Like waiting. I’ll stay here with you, if there’s nothing you need, but I have to sleep now. I may be a while.”

Shaking his head fractionally, the Doctor says, “Nothing I need badly enough I want you to go. The TARDIS will take care of me, if need be.”

“Alright. I'm going to lie down.” He warns the Doctor before he moves, to prevent panic, then circles the Doctor's wrist with his left hand and pulls to free his trapped one. Feeling better for being the holder and not the held, he pulls the covers down and slides in, settles his head on the Doctor's shoulder, forehead to cheek. “Alright?” he asks. “Not shattered?”

His lover rests their hands on his chest, content to be held. “Alright. Thank you. This is good. I'm just going to stay right here for a while…”

“You do that,” Jack says kindly, and, warm and exhausted and safe for now, closes his eyes and sleeps.

 


	32. Let go of me

When Jack falls asleep, his grip on the Doctor's wrist loosens, which is mildly terrifying. _Moderately_ ; moderately terrifying. Being held, Jack’s strength keeping him safe, feels much better right now than the desperation of clinging with all his might to an anchor that may not care. But he has left his head right there, pressed up against the Doctor’s cheek, and it will be fine, it will all be fine, for now. The TARDIS hums encouragingly to him. “Jack says we’ll get through it,” he whispers to her, a strange confidence from the man who _makes things better_ , but he doesn’t really, does he.

How does he never, ever manage to learn that _leave well enough alone_ is the only solution?

Now he is back in this bed, something hollow inside making him feel brittle and overinflated, a papier-mâché shell about to collapse on the vacuum within. Even Jack’s touch is not truly relief; the vast emptiness he is anchored in is still empty, but better that than the wild buffets of time winds he awoke to. He feels as if he has come disconnected from time. Why do they always come back here? He doesn't remember anymore why it started. He doesn't remember much; just a burnt out, gutted wreck, drifting in Jack's tow.

He moves his hand behind Jack's back till he can hook his fingers into the waist of his trousers, and then carefully twists a bit onto his side, making sure not to dislodge their hands from his chest, so he can push one foot under Jack’s legs, one foot between his ankles. Just to be tucked in, to prevent one more of his borders from bleeding out into the æther. Eventually, drifting slowly, warmed by Jack's furnace heat beside him, the Doctor sleeps.

-+-+-+-

When he wakes fifteen hours later, Jack is still asleep, which is initially mildly terrifying for several reasons. Fifteen hours accounts for quite a bit of healing on the Doctor's part, and he wonders what was wrong with him. His memory is very fuzzy but he remembers feeling exceedingly sick, and Jack making it better, which seems normal aside from the fuzziness. And Jack said he would be a while, so he is probably alright; hopefully a while is not a week.

He is feeling better now, less breakable, and the vertigo has gone as long as he doesn’t pay attention to it. That odd hollow feeling is still there, balanced at the edge of his skin, but no longer threatening to explode him. Still far from willing to part with Jack, his options for entertainment are few whilst he waits. No free hands, can’t read, or, well anything really. He is unusually thankful that Time Lords have better control of their biological process than humans, or he might have had to seriously consider getting up.

He rarely sees Jack sleeping; little as Time Lords sleep, it is still more than his immortal lover usually needs. But he has very often seen him dead, here in this room, in this bed. He wonders sometimes what possessed him to set up his own bed as Jack's bier. His pale, still face against the grassy red of the coverlet is a sight that will haunt him for the rest of his life, even were it much longer than he anticipates at this point, and is forcibly recalled by the slack stillness of sleep. “Jack,” he tries, softly, shaking their joined hands a bit. “Jack, wake up.” No response.

It occurs to him then that Jack probably really needs the sleep, and he should try to do what he keeps saying he will and bloody well _take care_ of his Captain now that he obviously needs it. Jack does, after all, spend a great deal of time taking care of _him_. He brushes a light kiss across the brow of his light in the darkness, and hums a lullaby; then another, then sings various bits of songs as they occur to him. The Doctor doesn’t run away anymore, but that doesn’t mean he likes to sit around thinking about uncomfortable things either; distraction is the better part of coping with a long life, and he is a past master at it, even stuck in bed. He tries playing chess against himself for a while, but eventually finds himself attempting to argue with K-9 and, suddenly feeling much more lonely than he would prefer, decides distraction has run its course and it is time for sleep again. Life would be a lot more interesting if he could bear to get up. Later; maybe Jack will be awake next time. The hollowness is starting to swallow him up, only the bright thread of Jack’s hold on his wrist keeping him anywhere at all, only his bright fire illuminating the empty darkness where _something_ ought to be. The Doctor presses as tightly to him as he can, and closes his eyes. Let tomorrow come; they’ll meet it together.

-+-+-+-

He wakes again, five hours later, as Jack is stretching, turning his head as best he can in his confined position; he hears vertebrae pop as well as Jack’s jaw as he yawns, and winces. “Sleeping for that long is just wrong,” Jack grumbles, and then notices the Doctor is awake as well. “Good morning, sunshine. Feeling better?”

“Yes,” he replies, and yawns too, rolling over onto his back, his right foot coming untucked.

Jack, keeping hold of his wrist, props himself up on his elbow; then his expression turns quizzical. “Trying to get into my trousers?”

“No, I just, it felt like -” he gives up, unsure at this point how to explain something dimly remembered. “Who needs to try?” No, that was wrong, tactless and probably hurtful, considering what he's done, despite recent improvements. “Sorry, I didn’t,” he starts to try to apologise, and then Jack looks _angry_.

“Do you even know what you’re apologising for?”

“A tactless comment?” he ventures. “I excel at them.”

“Yes, you do. I don’t care. You _should_ be apologising for how you _used_ me, yesterday.” The Doctor’s face clearly shows his incomprehension. “To convince me to kill myself for your next hit. I know that’s what you do, manipulate people for whatever the cause of the day is, but it’s not what _we_ do. I’ve earned some consideration.”

His mouth drops open; whatever this is is clearly bothering Jack but that seems unnecessarily harsh. “I don’t think that’s quite fair -”

But Jack continues without pausing. His grip on the Doctor’s wrist is tight. “You know what it does to me, submitting to you. You used sex deliberately, because I wasn’t agreeing with you quickly enough. That’s a violation of my trust, and it’s beneath you.” The flash of anger has faded to disappointment now, and it stings.

He doesn't think he's up to this conversation right now, regrets saying anything, resents Jack for pushing at it. “It wasn't like that, Jack, now's really not the time -”

“Yes,” Jack says, frowning down at him, “it really was like that. It wasn't calculated, but it was deliberate. And,” Jack's expression changes to something the Doctor can't immediately read, and his voice is suddenly gentler, “if you don't want to hear it, _get up_.”

A terrible something starts twisting in the Doctor's belly, eating its way slowly up to his hearts. “I'm sorry,” he tries, feeling short of breath, “please Jack, I'm sorry, don't go.” But Jack is just watching him, and then the grip on his wrist loosens. “Don't!” It is wrenched out of him as a terrified gasp.

“You need help, Doctor.” Jack tightens his grip again, looking deeply conflicted. “I can't hold on to you every second of the day, and I don't have the first idea what to expect with the withdrawal you're going to be going into.”

The change in topic almost gives him whiplash. “ _Withdrawal?_ Withdrawal from _what?_ ”

Jack looks at him pityingly. “From the fire,” he says. “From your godhood. It's not just me you're addicted to; you've dug yourself into a right mess. But you don't look in any state to kill me, and now that we're done with that I won't be giving it over voluntarily again. I think it's been nearly as long as usual already; are you feeling it yet?”

The Doctor realises then, to his horror, that a hollowness usually wants something to fill it; and if it feels like swallowing a star every time, extinguishing his own sun only to see its light shine out from his skin, how vast must the lack of it be? The horror must show on his face because Jack's expression softens, and he brings the Doctor's captive hand to his mouth, kissing each knuckle.

“Yes,” he says, more gently, “I thought you might. I won't leave you.” Leans down for a brief, chaste kiss. “But I'm not going to hold onto you every moment, either.” The Doctor's mind is locked in panicked considerations of just _when_ Jack will be letting go. “Stop,” Jack says. “Trust me.”

“You just said you don't know what to do!” He's wrapping his fingers in Jack's jumper, scrabbling for purchase at the back of his trousers, tangling their legs together; trying to keep him from leaving.

“Doctor. Trust me to _try_.” Keeping his grip on the Doctor's wrist, Jack isn't trying to control his movements at all; just watching him, whilst making one of the most terrifying requests of the Doctor’s long life. “Trust me to warn you before letting go. Trust me not to hurt you unnecessarily. Trust me to help you. Trust me to love you.”

“How can you?” the Doctor whispers, and he _needs_ an answer.

“After all this, you mean? I can't not,” Jack replies solemnly. “I don't trust you entirely right now, this you, here, for reasons I think both rational and temporary, but I can't not love you; I've tried, believe me. I've loved you since the day I met you, and you were a right arse so don't think it was your charming wit or sunny disposition. You're not any better now,” here the Doctor is mildly offended, because he thinks he's a bit of alright this time around, really, and so do a few other people he could name, “and I'm still a hopeless fool for you. I'll always help you, whatever you need to do; I think the last however long, and _don't_ tell me, has demonstrated that more than adequately. I'll die for you,” the Doctor flinches, “and I'll live for you, and I know which one is harder. Trust me.” He pulls the Doctor's hand from his jumper, lays it against his face; he has clearly taken the question seriously. “We'll get through this. There's so much more to see.”

The Doctor is staring at him wide-eyed by the end, fear forgotten. He is not so far gone that he didn't notice the hints that Jack has encountered his own future self, has been relying on knowledge and not simple faith. It is deliberate on Jack's part, he wouldn't just _slip up_ after years of concealing it; probably for the purpose of lending the Doctor some of that strength of belief.

His bright star is more than he knew, this man who has a faith in him to move mountains with. How will he, _can_ he, ever redeem it?

Jack is watching him patiently, waiting for an answer, or maybe another question. He is always so patient. The Doctor caresses his face, runs his thumb across his brow and around that deep, clear blue eye, down his cheek, brushes his lips which part slightly at the touch. He tugs lightly and Jack bends down to him, tongue flicking out to tease along the Doctor's lips with searing heat; he can't help but reach up and seal his mouth to Jack's, needing more, needing all the heat and life and love he is offering. He tries to chase it all with his tongue but Jack's is already filling his mouth and he moans, pinned under this sun whose blazing fire he will never feel again save from the outside, like this. The sudden desolation is crushing, and he pulls away.

“What's wrong?”

“Jack, don't you think -” The Doctor licks his lips nervously. “There's certainly more I need to fix, I need to try to set things right -” but Jack lifts a finger from his wrist and lays it on his lips, shaking his head and smiling, terribly sadly.

“No,” he says gently. “You don't.”

The Doctor closes his eyes against the truth he can see in Jack's and breathes carefully through the fear eating away at him. “We’ll get through this?” Jack's belief will have to carry him too, because he has none left in himself.

“We'll get through this,” Jack affirms. “Do you trust me?”

Finding that everything he thought should have destroyed Jack's trust in him has instead built in him a deep foundation of trust in Jack, the Doctor answers the only way he can. “Yes. Always.”

He doesn't open his eyes as Jack leans down to kiss him lightly. “Then let go, Doctor. I'll be here to catch you, but we need to know. Let go of me.”

He doesn't think about it, just lets Jack's voice carry straight through him as if it were his own; pulls his feet away, transfers the grip of his left hand from Jack's trousers to the bed, and holds his right hand where it is as Jack pulls away, his hand still holding the Doctor's wrist, keeping him safe.

Sounding as overwhelmed as the Doctor feels, Jack asks, “Are you ready?”

 _Never!_ but he nods. “Yes,” he finds himself saying, as Jack sits up, as his stomach does anxious flip flops, as he holds tight to his trust that Jack will come back, his sun will not fail him.

Setting his hand down carefully on the bed, Jack says, “I'm letting go now,” and does, and the Doctor falls away into emptiness.

 


	33. The exact opposite of letting go

The Doctor doesn't cry out, save for one strangled gasp at first, but his breaths come quick and shallow and his face pales dramatically when Jack lets go. Witnessing his terror is almost too much for Jack at the moment; telling the Doctor _no_ and watching him realise what he had asked had been heartbreaking, and seeing the trust he holds both exalting and crushingly heavy. Without the day of sleep Jack could not have borne it, and even so there is a part of him that wants nothing more than to run from this responsibility.

It has been a minute and he can see the Doctor is actually biting his tongue, to keep from pleading for respite Jack assumes. His hands are clenched in the bedsheets and this is clearly something that is going to take practice, but it is enough for now, surely. Jack reaches down and grasps both his lover's wrists firmly; it seemed well received before. Quick as a spark the Doctor's arms turn in his grip and then he is being held as well, fingers like vises clamping over his cuffs, as if the Doctor had been falling and Jack had caught him. He looks sick _now_ , where he hadn't before. Jack waits, holding tight, sitting still, keeping his breathing steady for the Doctor to focus on when he can. His fingers relax after another minute and he groans. “That's bloody awful. Like being yanked off a centrifuge and stuck to a cliff two hundred feet up. The transition is truly horrendous.”

“Oh.” Jack decides he might as well ask. “And when I let go?”

“I fall.” He looks resigned, no longer as terrified. “It's not as bad as I was expecting, as when I first woke up without you, and it's… different, than it was when everything was in flux. Everything is muffled, or far away, or… after seeing _everything_ so clearly for all these years, I feel like I've come adrift from time, but I can't tell if that's true or just… by contrast.” He shakes his head, and deliberately loosens his grip on Jack's wrists. “And the hollowness swallows me up. You are, as ever, a light in the darkness.”

His eyes are shuttered, and he doesn't look young at all right now, face reflecting the desolation of all his journeys through that dark. Jack can remember long ago days when he was no light in darkness to this man, but the passing centuries have changed the pain into simple history. He pulls the Doctor's left arm about his waist and lets go that wrist so he can tuck his hand behind his lover's neck and bend down to kiss his forehead. “My own lonely wanderer,” he says, almost a benediction, and he is not letting go now; but someday soon he will, send his wanderer out again to make his way alone, as he must. He kisses the corners of the Doctor's eyes and then his eyelids as they close, the corner of his mouth and then his lips as they open in welcome with a sigh. With the fear muted for now they relax into each other, quiet and undemanding.

After a couple minutes, Jack pushes himself back up and announces, “I'm hungry.” The Doctor raises an incredulous brow, and Jack's stomach rumbles on cue. “I'm _really_ hungry. Sorry? Surely we can come back to this later.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with Captain Jack Harkness?” But he looks like he is smothering laughter.

Jack narrows his eyes and gives it one more try. “Look, when they say I'm driven by my appetites they don't just mean sex.” Finally the Doctor gives in and laughs, and Jack is content. He grins back at his lover. “Up you get.”

After what Jack privately suspects is rather a comedy routine of getting themselves untangled and out of bed and getting the Doctor dressed without Jack letting go of him, they head for the kitchen. He is holding the Doctor by the hand now, because although the Doctor seems comfortable with it right now, leading him around by the wrist feels profoundly unnatural to Jack. Leading him at all, in fact. But he’ll do what he has to.

First into the kitchen, Jack stops abruptly and laughs; there is coffee waiting again and a full English for two laid on. “Guess I know who’s on your good side today, gorgeous!” He pats the wall affectionately, and tugs the Doctor in after him. As he walks by the nearer setting he snags all the bacon from it and transfers it to what is now his, just to save the Doctor the trouble. Altruistic, really. He stuffs a piece into his mouth as he continues on to fix the coffee. Glancing back, he sees the Doctor rolling his eyes with a resigned expression.

“She does this sometimes,” he sighs. “Mostly after days, well, I’d say _come along, Pond,_ and she’d say _this is stupid, Doctor,_ and we’d go anyway and it’s not like I could just say, _you were right, Pond,_ because she’s bad enough already, but then just to rub it in at breakfast the next morning, you know.” And Jack does know, having encountered the inimitable Amelia Pond, but it is still quite funny and he sniggers as he pours two cups of coffee.

“It’s not all _that_ funny,” the Doctor sulks as they sit down; he carefully pushes the bowl of beans away with one finger.

“Yes,” Jack says happily, “it is,” and tucks in wholeheartedly.

-+-+-+-

The Doctor clinging to him is not a new thing, although in the past there was more letting go when it made sense to do so. It’s just that there is so much more time to live through, now, on a very short tether to a hyperactive, moody alien. Whom he happens to love but sometimes it wears a bit thin.

“There’s a book about that in the library, hold on - no, come with…”

“We’re going to want a hyperwave capacitor, little doodad about yea long, kind of spiky, of course you know what it is. Storeroom two, could you - no! No, don’t, I’ll come with you… “

“I just need to do some maintenance on the fluid links, erm -” After a baffled look at their joined hands, he pulls up his trouser leg and offers his ankle hopefully to Jack, who groans and covers his face with his free hand. Even with them both sleeping more often than usual, there are still eight or more hours of waking time in between to survive; it has only taken a day and a half to drive Jack to distraction. His life had been constrained before but not like this. They need progress, and soon.

Not having bothered with shoes since it's not as if the Doctor can go out in this condition, Jack opts to stand on the Doctor’s ankle instead as he disappears under the console. Not that the Time Lord is actually having any better time of it, but Jack is feeling put upon and needs to take out his annoyance on _something_ , and no active pursuits are available to him currently.

“Are you angry with me?” His lover's plaintive voice drifts up to him from below the console.

Jack sighs. “No, I just…” He folds his legs beneath him and sits, lays his hand on the Doctor’s ankle. “Kind of; frustrated. At the situation.”

“Yes. I'm sorry.” He seems to have stopped working. “Knowing what's waiting for me, I just… can't. Can't let go. But I don't… Jack, if you think it's best…” He's entirely lost faith in himself, Jack realises, and his heart breaks anew for this despairing man whose recent choices have turned out so poorly for all involved.

“You're going to have to let me, then, Doctor,” he says, gently. “We can't go on like this, even in the short term. It will get better, either with practice or with time, but even if it's time I still need to be able to let go for a few minutes. I'd like to use the bathroom alone, at least. Or take a hot shower occasionally.” It seems that Jack himself is just about the perfect therapeutic temperature for the Time Lord, which makes shared showers often unpleasantly tepid.

“And getting dressed is just ridiculous, I know.” He sounds resigned, and less afraid than Jack expected; it seems he has been thinking along similar lines, underneath the distractions that have been driving Jack mad. “Well.” He takes a few slow breaths, then pushes himself out toward Jack. “Best try it here; maybe the TARDIS can… help, somehow.”

Jack reaches over to take his outstretched hand, and lets go his ankle. He hadn't meant to push the Doctor to immediate measures, but neither is he going to protest. “We'll catch you,” he promises, and hears the TARDIS hum comfortingly.

The Doctor smiles sickly. “The catching is the worst part; that's the problem.” Jack opens his mouth, spotting the flaw here easily, but the Doctor shakes his head. “Do it anyway. Please. Please don't… leave.”

Something to do with the complex mess of trauma and withdrawal the Doctor is dealing with, then; Jack nods. “I won't leave you.”

“I know.” The look in the Doctor's eyes is so open and trusting that Jack finds he can't respond; he gathers his lover into his arms instead, holding tight. “Jack -” It comes out sounding choked. “Jack,” the Doctor tries again, swallowing thickly, “this is the exact opposite of letting go."

“It's not that I ever _want_ to,” Jack mumbles into his hair, pushed into unaccustomed honesty. “Don't imagine I've ever _wanted_ you to go, in all my life. I would keep you, safe here, forever if I could, if it wouldn't destroy you. You don't know…” He takes an odd hiccuping breath, then another. He shouldn't, he shouldn't, but he can't stop, he's ripped open straight to the depths of his soul. “If you could never leave me. How much longer would you live.”

“Oh, Jack…” His lover twists in his lap, right hand cupping the back of his bowed head; he pulls his left from Jack's grip to wind around his back and hold him close. Kissing Jack's head, he makes no further comment, and they sit there together, Jack mostly occupied in being grateful that the Doctor hasn't rejected him outright; not that he would have a lot of standing to do so.

Then the Time Lord sits up, and Jack raises his head to see his eyes feverishly bright, expression intent. “Shall we find out?” he offers, sliding his hand around to Jack's cheek.

“Doctor?”

“One more Fixed Point, Jack. One more time, and my future is yours.” That deadly earnest face, and Jack feels the bottom dropping out of his world.

He is in freefall, terror and an awful hope eating him from the inside, tempted, so tempted in this moment. _Unfair_ , something in him cries, unfair to have laid his heart bare and been handed back this dreaded test in return; because he has known since the beginning, though he let himself forget, that someday he might have to do this. He had not expected the additional weight of the offer of his heart’s desire.

Time is nearly standing still; he can hear each heartbeat loud in his ears and all he sees are the Doctor's eyes, intent and desperately hungry. If he could, if only he could, make _sure_ the Doctor will keep living and not throw himself into reckless, stupid causes, not burn through his life uncaringly as his previous self did, but it is an impossible promise. He can no more change his nature than Jack can stop loving him. Knowing what he does of the Doctor's future, as well, it takes all his faith in himself and belief in that future to ignore the traitorous thought that he might actually be dooming him by denying this request. What if this _is_ how that death is averted? But there must be another way, because he knows what the answer must be.

Because it would never be just one more time.

This, then, is how Jack discovers what he has become over the years of his captivity: sitting on the console room floor, going best of three with temptation, staring paralysed into the desperate eyes of the man who has been jailor and abuser as well as general and lover to him. It is not a change he can welcome; a clear place in his hierarchy has always been a comfort to Jack. He has given that up to become what is needed, to become a man who _can_ stop the Doctor.

He reaches up, takes the Doctor's face between his hands, and kisses him softly. Then pushes him away again, and, staring into eyes gone hopeful and feeling like he’s ripping his own heart out, says, “No.”

Watching the hope splinter away to despair, to understanding, to hopeless fear for the future, is more than enough to destroy the last of Jack's endurance. He takes the Doctor's hands, stands and pulls him after, and they lean on each other as he leads them to bed.

 


	34. Dare seize the fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Explicit sex scene._

The Doctor doesn't speak again, that day or the next. He doesn't know what might come out of his mouth, when he might next beg Jack to kill himself, how he might next try to mortgage his own soul for one more taste of that eternal flame.

There has been very little else on his mind, truly, ever since Jack told him he could never have it again. He had driven Jack to distraction, trying to distract _himself_ , but it didn't work. He can't bear to let go of his only source of warmth in the cold, of stability in the maelstrom, and he has been relying on Jack's strength to carry them both through; but after that disastrous conversation he knows he may be testing his lover all the way to destruction. He couldn’t possibly have done what he promised, but his words weren’t under his control.

Shattered, that's what he is; pulverized, ground down to jagged sand under the unforgiving wheel of his own arrogant good intentions. He has made hard choices before, lifetimes of them, saved and lost more people and planets than he can count; but rarely has it been this pointlessly destructive. He may have done some good at the beginning, when he was changing timelines experimentally, for the beauty of it; but probably just as much ill, especially once he started investigating Fixed Points. He was capricious, dropping out of the sky to crack open worlds’ histories, no aim in mind, no higher goal, with what real consequences he doesn’t know. He has already tested Jack to the breaking point once. He committed accidental genocide, trying to prevent a people from committing it themselves, then nearly destroyed himself and Jack again to fix it, only to find they had done it themselves, _again_. Nothing, nothing accomplished, nothing gained, nothing worth the years and the deaths and the heartbreak he has inflicted.

And now he can’t stop himself from inflicting more, on the person he should be begging forgiveness of on his knees, if he did things like that, if Jack would hear it. _Atone on your own time_ , he had said. But his sins grow greater and his time grows shorter every day.

Jack has taken charge of him in his silence, shepherding him about, seeing to his physical needs, reading to him when he fails, after sleeping, to provide his own diversions; never letting go. Sometimes he has a terrible impulse to pull away, to run, flee from this searing gravity well and never look back. But he won't. It is the only stability he knows in all the worlds and Time anymore, and if he can never have the fire at least it warms him with its heat; and it loves him more than he can understand, enough to set the universe ablaze for him. Enough to let him go when he must. Even through everything else, he knows this now with a trust that is unquestionable.

-+-+-+-

“Doctor,” Jack says, after another day, “can you tell me _why_ you stopped talking, at least?”

They are in the library, in preference to reading in bed again, the Doctor tucked into a corner of a sofa and Jack settled back against his chest, his hands under Jack's shirt, soaking up the steady solid heat of him. His Captain sounds strained, stretched thin, he notices now; how many reasons had he thought of, and in how many of them is he blaming himself? Another guilt to his tally.

“I don't trust what I'll say,” the Doctor replies; his throat is rough and he coughs. “What I might ask you to do. No other reason, Jack, I'm sorry.”

Jack sighs, and relaxes. “Don't worry about it. Nothing else could be such a temptation. Unless you've found out how to fix me, and haven't told me.” He pauses, invitingly. The Doctor shakes his head sadly. “Well, then. No. That was… my test, and we're past it. Next is recovery, when you're ready. You can't stay walled up in guilt and fear forever.”

“I can manage a good bit longer than two days, I'll have you know,” the Doctor grumbles.

“That's why everyone's always telling you not to travel alone; yes, I know.”

“Oi,” he protests, halfheartedly. “I am not _prone to depressions_ or whatever you're thinking. I'm fine on my own.”

“No,” Jack says, emphatically. “You're really not. Or you'd never be in this mess. Too long alone, no one to tell you you're being stupid, no one to stop you. And that is my fault,” he adds, regretfully. “If I'd been what you needed to start with…”

Tightening his arms around his Captain, the Doctor says, “Don't. Don't ever blame yourself for me.” He kisses Jack's ear, because it is right there. “I'm the Doctor; you are not responsible for me.” His own choices, his own mistakes; there is no higher authority, in so many ways.

Jack laughs, just a huff of breath. “Except sometimes, I am.” Which is hard to argue with, actually, given the last couple days. There's a pause. “Has anyone ever told you you have a bit of a god complex?”

It is suddenly hard to breathe. Because yes, of course; but the time that comes to mind… endless hotel corridors, and a clever girl whose name he is ashamed to have forgotten, and his Pond, Amelia whose faith he stole, the baseless faith of a child but still not his to take; only he couldn't bear the weight of it, anymore. “Drenched in the blood of the innocent,” he says, remembering the last words of the Minotaur; and he does feel drenched, all over again.

Jack is turning in his arms, holding one wrist tight. “What's wrong, you're shaking, Doctor?” He is searching the Doctor's face for clues, and maybe he didn't say that out loud after all. “Hey. Breathe.”

He breathes. “Sorry, sorry, just… sorry.” _For such a creature, death would be a gift_ , that's what it had said. He never thought it so; this current self was _made_ to rage against the dying of the light. But he is starting to think that he may have gone on too long for the universe's comfort. “I've failed at being a god with truly stunning completeness.”

“Doctor… No,” Jack interrupts himself. “I don't think that's an accurate representation of what's going on in your head right now.” He settles himself more comfortably between the Doctor's legs, twisting to face him, holding both his wrists against his chest. “But someday, go back there, and see all those people living out their lives for thousands of years across an entire galaxy and then come tell me you're a complete failure. It didn't end well, but sometimes things don't. It doesn't change the fact that you righted a wrong, and you did things no one else could do or ever will do again.”

It won't be any time soon, if he ever does. Things no one should ever do, indeed. He can't quite look Jack in the eye. “I certainly hope no one ever does them to you again.”

Jack almost looks disappointed at that, a censorious frown crossing his face. “You're wallowing.”

“No, I'm not! I'm trying to apologise!” Infuriating man, to refuse all his attempts, to mock his guilt! But his Captain's lips quirk up, and he presses the Doctor's wrists together under one of his hands so he can lay his other against the Doctor's face. Abruptly recalled to other memories of his wrists held like this, the Doctor stills.

“Good,” Jack says. “Keep trying.” Then he sees something in the Doctor's face, and his expression turns calculating. He tightens his hand and the Doctor goes a bit light-headed. “You like this?”

“Very much.” That was never _his_ voice, high and breathless like that?

“Hmm.” His lover leans forward slowly, giving him plenty of time to change his mind, but there is nothing at all going through his mind right now so how could he change it? He can't catch his breath. Jack nuzzles his face, that fire so close, presses dry lips against the corner of his mouth; the Doctor's eyes are wide as a startled rabbit’s, Jack's warm and watchful, his guardian and protector now. That searing hot tongue comes out, tracing his lower lip softly, and he opens his mouth hungrily, some kind of noise escaping him but this is far more important than abstract dignity.

“Are you alright?” Jack whispers, against his chin. He swallows, nods, tries to assemble sense enough to answer.

“Yes, fine, want you. Need you.” It doesn't sound reassuringly sensible. “Captain, Captain, burning bright -” No, that's worse, _what immortal hand or eye_ indeed, but Jack smiles.

“I have been told I'm particularly…   _symmetric_.” He says it in that voice of his that is pure sex, smooth and deep, that can make any ridiculous statement into a come-on; the Doctor has never really found symmetry _arousing_ before, but there is a first time for everything -

Jack kisses him, tongue in his mouth and he's set on fire, he'll do anything for more, _more_. Maybe he is sublimating other urges into sex, which is usually the other way around for him, but that's fine, in this case it is practically therapeutic all on its own. He moans and sucks Jack's tongue in further, and then it is his Captain's turn to moan, deep and helpless, and _oh_ yes, he knows the effect that has but he is wicked and reckless. Leaning in, Jack holds his head steady as he ravages his mouth with that tongue, and it is almost as good as giving himself up to that consuming fire Jack carries within him, almost enough to satisfy; it is all he'll ever get and he will _make_ it be enough.

Then the heel of his Captain's hand is pressing down hard on his cock, slowly dragging upwards; his hips buck and he cries out, muffled by Jack's tongue, and he nearly comes right then, he doesn't need much more -! Jack kneels up, setting a hard thigh between his legs and pressing his wrists to the back of the sofa either side of his head. Self-control has long gone, he's sucking on the tongue filling his mouth, there's fire in his veins, and Jack is going to let him come like this, in his trousers, rutting wildly against his lover's leg. Then he is coming, and it is glorious release, pinned here under his bright sun who is swallowing down all his cries; over so fast but worth it, worth it.

But his Captain is waiting, so after a moment the Doctor pushes at his wrists and Jack draws back, lets his right hand free; he reaches for trousers stretched taut and carefully works them open. Watching Jack's face, flushed and wanting, pupils blown in eyes glazed with lust, the Doctor continues, “'In what distant deeps or skies, burnt the fires of your eyes?'” His mind is a maze of words, sometimes. He pulls Jack’s trousers and pants down with a little help, freeing his straining cock. “'On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?'” Closes his hand on the thick solid heat of him, and as Jack groans and throws his head back, hips swaying toward him, he bends down and takes Jack's cock into his mouth, slipping smooth and heavy across his tongue. It startles a cry out of his lover, and a thrust of his hips, and the Doctor takes it all, wants it more than anything in this moment. He hollows his cheeks as he sucks, letting Jack set the pace, echoing his groans deep in his throat which just earns him more. It's not so very long before his Captain is coming too, one hand braced on his shoulder and the other still pinning one wrist, moaning, “Fuck, so good, _Doctor_ ,” as he shudders. The Doctor licks him clean gently, savoring the taste, then pulls away. Jack leans down to kiss him, then in his distraction lets go entirely as he uses both hands to pull up and fasten his trousers.

Eyes going wide, the Doctor feels his stomach drop and Time swings wildly around, somewhere far below him. Jack looks horrified as he calls, ”Doctor!” and he is about to catch him back when the Doctor, still feeling reckless and buoyed by the afterglow, says, “Wait.” Jack freezes, watching him carefully, looking painfully guilty. “It's alright,” the Doctor assures him, voice feeling very far away. “I want to try.”

“Alright,” Jack says, and takes his hands back, finishes buttoning his trousers.

The Doctor considers. “I need a shower,” he offers. “Just… let me stay close to you.”

They make it to the shower without incident, undressing made significantly easier than in the last few days, but as he steps over the lip of the shower a wave of vertigo overcomes him. He grabs frantically for his Captain, forgetting, and then promptly loses his breakfast on the floor of the shower.

“Well,” Jack says encouragingly, after they've got cleaned up, “it's a start.” The Doctor nods weakly. Someone once said, _every journey begins with a single step_ ; he doesn't recall anything about it being so bloody uncomfortable.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The Tyger, by William Blake. Couldn't help myself._


	35. Gifts unlooked for

Lying spread out on his back, Jack is enjoying a view of spectacular cloud formations in an oddly yellow sky. Aside from the yellow, it reminds him of Ophicche; best weather he has ever seen, there. He would rather be up in it, but this will do.

It is one of their outings to preserve sanity, as he likes to think of it. The TARDIS is doing a remarkable job of finding interesting places that nevertheless don't run the risk of the Doctor not being able to find Jack immediately he can't take being alone anymore. It helps him to have something to do whilst he readjusts to a more normal, for a Time Lord, sense of time and space. It is dull and dim to him after life with the Time Vortex burning inside him, and Jack hasn't exactly enjoyed the moodiness brought on by his returning to his proper place as a single, albeit unusually convoluted, timeline among many, but the outings help. This one is clearly more to Jack's taste, as his lover has been wandering about kicking rocks. His loss.

Suddenly he is attacked; well, sat on, maybe, because it is the Doctor, straddling him, pinning his wrists. “Hello,” Jack says, mildly confused.

“But why _aren't_ you afraid of me?” the Doctor asks, continuing some internal conversation.

Jack stares at him, even more confused. “Sometimes I am. Usually I'm not. I mean, what are you going to do, kill me?”

“Demonstrably, yes!” More guilt, then; there is a lot of it to go around, admittedly. “I could almost bear to do it again, do you know?” he adds, spitefully.

Jack shakes his head. “Three days of me dead? Four? I'd fight it, now. No, you couldn't.” The sick look on the Doctor's face betrays the truth of this. “But yes, I took that chance, that we would get through the worst of the withdrawal before you could stand to kill me again. I know it hurts, Doctor, but we'll get through it.”

“You are infuriatingly blasé in regards to your personal safety, Captain. I could just kill you in any number of normal ways.” Jack can't read him anymore, doesn't know where he's going with this.

“And, what, wake up chained decoratively to the wall? Done it.” The Doctor flinches at that. “More than once. I'm afraid _for_ you far more than I am _of_ you. What is this about?”

The Time Lord tucks Jack's hands under his knees and sits back on his hips to look down on him; and now Jack can guess some of it. “I'm dangerous. You're a fool to trust me.”

“To be clear, I do _not_ trust you enough for that at the moment, unless I've misunderstood and you're actually looking for a fight,” Jack points out equably. “But also, you've always been dangerous. I love that about you, the danger and the power and all that self-control I can sometimes make you lose. I've never been what you'd call _risk-averse_. Every one of you I've seen or met has been dangerous. That's never stopped me, and never will.”

The Doctor is getting frustrated at this point; Jack is clearly not playing the right part here. “Jack, I've hurt you! I've _raped_ you. _I'm hurting you right now!_ ” The last comes out as a wail; he has tangled his hands in Jack's jumper and is pulling like he is trying to shake him. It is enough, Jack decides; this is probably what he gets for leaving the Doctor to stew about it for so long. He plants his right foot, shoves with his shoulder, and topples the Doctor, rolling over him and pinning him bodily.

“I'm okay with that,” he says into the Doctor's shocked face. “You _know_ that. Not the raping, kind of by definition, but there wasn't as much of that as I think you're imagining.” At least he doesn't think so, and, well, what's forgotten is easily forgiven. “But the rest of it? What you need, and what I need, match up pretty well most of the time, and when they don’t we can choose to indulge each other. It’s a matter of trust, Doctor, and it’s a matter of perspective, and from my perspective, trust is all I need. Everything else will work itself out, in time.” The Doctor is just staring up at him now, wide-eyed, and Jack sighs. He is likely not yet in a place he can understand; still too broken, and missing experiences that are in Jack’s past. “You saw how far that trust will take me. Eventually you managed to break it, and that broke me, but it wasn't… any of the specific acts you feel most guilty about.” The Doctor is looking rather sick at this point, and Jack raises an eyebrow. “No, not even that one. Whatever you’re thinking about. I was probably okay with it, if you had thought to ask at the time.”

“I don’t think so, Jack,” the Doctor murmurs, looking away.

Jack gives it even odds, given what he can remember and what he knows about the Doctor. The odds that he would have been okay with it _if the Doctor had asked_ are significantly higher. “You frequently underestimate me. I _know_ you, Doctor. Your limits are much stricter than mine; even when you bend them, even when you scare yourself, I’m still safe with you. When you lose yourself, yes, you do scare me, but we’ve come a long way since then. I know things are weird right now, but I’ve forgiven you, Doctor. It’s time to start forgiving yourself.” He bends down and kisses his lover thoroughly, silencing any unnecessary comments he might attempt, until he starts to relax beneath him. “And I'll tell you a secret. Sometimes, I _like_ to be a little scared of you. Hide your darkness away, if you have to, but I know you better than anyone, and I love all of you.” He brings his lips to the Doctor's ear, and whispers, “Let it out to play, sometimes.”

The Doctor shivers. “Why do conversations with you _never_ go the way I expect?”

“Bad mental model of immortal humans who love renegade Time Lords,” Jack suggests, and licks his ear.

“Hmm. Need more observation, clearly…” He is nuzzling Jack's neck, hips twitching just a little, but he pauses for one more question. “Jack. Why did you stay, at the beginning?”

Leaving off his mapping of the Doctor's ear for a moment, Jack replies, “You needed me. That's all it ever takes.”

-+-+-+-

They are working on the TARDIS a few days later, a pastime greatly facilitated by the Doctor's increasing ability to cope on his own, when he pokes his head out of the compartment he is working in and says, “But really, Captain, _particularly symmetric?_ ”

Jack snorts with laughter at the non sequitur, and the Doctor, who still seems unusually invested in his laughing, beams happily at him. “Well, A, yes I have been told that; never know what pushes someone’s buttons. And B, it worked, didn't it?”

“You were using your sexy voice!” his lover returns, defensively.

Grinning, he stands up and prowls toward the Doctor, and in his best sexy voice says, “Would it help if I told you I've also been called an incorrigible flirt with an inflated head and an unwarranted fondness for losing my clothes?”

The Doctor's eyes are dark, staring at his mouth, as he says, “Yes… no! ...What?” Jack laughs so hard he nearly falls over, but he probably should have known better; the Doctor has been insatiable since he started, as he says, sublimating other things into sex. But on the other hand, an armful of randy, temporarily nauseated Time Lord is one of the better problems he can imagine having. They have learned that kissing is very much the wrong way to go about reestablishing contact, but that effect is starting to fade too, with time or practice. Progress, very welcome progress.

-+-+-+-

Sleeping so much lately, Jack has been dreaming, and he doesn't dream of fire or death or people he has known, but of rain. The Doctor is starting to recover, sleep gradually decreasing toward his normal three or four hours per day, but not Jack. The full day of sleep after the last timeline change only postponed his reckoning; he still owes a solid week of unconsciousness on the debt accrued by so many deaths. It has happened a few times before and he is familiar with the process. He is sleeping up to ten hours of every day now, just to stay functional, to keep up with the Doctor, to be what he needs right now, which is more than he has slept since he was _mortal_. He probably can't put it off much longer.

The dreams of rain haven't let him go, the last couple days. He remembers the years in stasis; in some variation of stasis because there shouldn't have been dreams, and he shouldn't remember the years. It's the only real rest he has ever had in this endless cycle of lives, another after another after another. Death is no respite, and stasis should have been no more a respite than time travel is, skipping ahead without experiencing. But it was, and he has started to think about going back to it. To rest, and healing, without a life he has to live through; just for a while.

One night, lying in bed, he tries out the idea on the Doctor. “When we're done here,” he says, and the Doctor startles and looks down at him from his book. He doesn't stay all the extra hours Jack sleeps; it reminds him too much of other vigils he has sat in this bed. “When we're done here, I'll need to sleep, for a long time.”

“I know,” says the Doctor. “You've been putting it off, for me.” He is looking guilty again, but Jack has given up arguing with him every time; guilt is some sort of base state for the Doctor. But Jack had forgotten that he would know.

“Right, that was practically the first this you saw of me. Hello Doctor, what are you doing here, fall unconscious for a week. It's a wonder you keep me around.” He smiles, tightening his arm around his lover's waist, and feels fingers carding his hair.

“Well, the sex is good.” And thank the gods they have come to a place where they can joke again. Jack is about to continue when the Doctor puts down his book and adds, “But no, not just then. After the Reaper… you slept for six days, and it didn't change a thing when you woke. And I couldn't… that's when we took that break. It didn't do you any good either, and I was far from my right mind, but Jack, I never meant to… I broke you worse than you knew. And I barely even cared, for days. It was - a long time, until you came back.”

It is a dimly remembered part of Jack's life, timeless and indistinct, and he wants to consign it back to the darkness; wishes the Doctor hadn't bought it up, because it is an awful truth, sitting in his belly like lead. Worse than he knew, indeed; no wonder he is different, put back together again. He is stronger, he thinks, or will be after he sleeps again, but at what price?

The Doctor is waiting, still and silent; for his judgement, Jack suspects. “I can't judge you,” he says, gently.

“You, of all people -!” the Doctor protests.

“Yes, I who couldn't tell you no, I who came willingly, I who followed you into hell with barely a second thought, _though I was warned_.” The Doctor's mouth is open to interrupt him again, and it stays that way for a full seven seconds after Jack finishes. It is more amusing than he dares let show, at the moment.

“Who -”

“You. Not in so many words, not to interfere; you knew, you know now, warnings won't stop me. Just so I could believe we make it through, that you still trust me at the end. You offer compelling evidence.” He smiles into his lover's chest; intimately familiar with the vagaries of time travel, that is all he will be saying.

“I… see. That does seem to have been a necessary factor.” The Doctor looks a bit shocked. “And in your considered opinion, have we made it through?”

“Nearly.” Jack pushes himself up on his elbow, raises an enquiring brow. “And do you trust me?”

The Doctor considers him solemnly, nearly frowning. “With everything I am.”

No longer smiling, Jack lays his head back down as he echoes the Doctor's unexpected use of familiar words. “Everything I am.” But it comes out all wrong, not the acknowledgement of the Doctor's perpetual claim on him it usually is, instead a memory of pain. This is not the conversation he thought he would be having tonight. Everything is all wrong, and he's so tired. “Nevermind,” he cuts the Doctor off. “When we're done here, I was thinking of going back to Ophicche, back into stasis. I dreamt, all those years, the years passed and I healed but I didn't have to _live_. Maybe you understand that.”

“Maybe I do,” his lover says softly, carding his hair again. “I wish I understood why you dreamt, but it's enough that you did. Gifts unlooked for.”

“Gods of mercy,” Jack mumbles, giving in to sleep at last. “All I can hope to receive.”

 


	36. An infinity in memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _NSFW chapter. Still a bit kinky but finally entirely loving._

There has been something on the Doctor's mind all day, Jack can tell. There is a look in his eyes, and the occasional patter of inconsequential words, and invasions of Jack's personal space which feel rather experimental. Tidying up after breakfast, he had crowded Jack against the counter, thigh pressed between his legs, and kissed him hungrily, then broke away uncertainly after a minute, leaving Jack bemused and aroused. After lunch, the Doctor stops Jack in the corridor and all is made clear. Tentatively, he raises Jack's wrists and presses them to the wall at eye level. “Do you… want this?”

Staring straight at him, Jack answers with perfect honesty, “Desperately.”

“Do you trust me?”

The much more complicated question. Jack considers his lover, waiting patiently if anxiously, offer extended without pressure. He feels selfishly grateful that the Doctor is too uncertain to be wearing that earnest look that still makes him want to hand over his soul. On the other hand, now he looks altogether too young, eyes wide, hair falling over his face, red bowtie already askew. Jack would straighten it if he had his hands free. For the people they have become, together, the question is vastly more meaningful than he could have guessed, long ago when the Doctor had told him _I trust you_.

As the silence stretches, the Doctor says, in the tone of a confession, “I won't hurt you,” and Jack remembers another occasion when this promise was offered and trust was given. “I can't, yet. Just restraints, if you're willing, if you want.”

Past the fear of before, that restraints might be a permanent thing once entered into, the only danger remaining is Jack's tendency to find out uncomfortable truths about himself when he goes down to the bottom of his soul. But that has never stopped him before, and won't now. The Doctor, by all the evidence, has regained control of himself, and that is all Jack truly requires to feel safe. “Yes,” he decides, “I do. Trust you, and want.” And he does want. Being restrained, in a situation he trusts, is paradoxically freeing, and he is ready to be freed from his caretaking duties. The Doctor ready to take back command is the clearest indicator he can imagine that it is time.

His lover smiles at his answer, relief and anticipation clear in his face. He lets go Jack's right wrist but tugs his sleeve from his arm, starting the process of undressing him early. Keeping hold of his left wrist, he heads toward the bedroom. “Come along, Captain.” Jack follows, shrugging and shaking his arm until his jumper is half off, to help speed things along.

Once there, the Doctor pushes him against the wall and pulls his jumper off between ravishing kisses. Even better, he allows Jack to undress him as he goes after Jack's trousers. He has braces down, bowtie off, and shirt untucked and nearly unbuttoned when the Doctor pulls his left hand away and raises it over his head. Jack finishes unbuttoning with one hand, then his lover takes that one too; Jack feels a pull at his cuff, then pressure, and looks up to see his wrist held by a blunt hook on the wall passing through two neat holes in his cuff that were not there before. His other wrist is held likewise. Whatever they are made of, it is malleable only to the Doctor's wishes. Made captive with shocking suddenness, mouth dry and heart racing, he twists back to stare at the Doctor, who is tossing aside his shirt and about to step out of the trousers he has opened and let fall. “You like it? Only the best cuffs for you,” the Doctor says, watching Jack with dark eyes.

Jack gives the Doctor a very deliberate look, up and down and back up again, and says huskily, “I like it.” Delighted by the blush that spreads over his lover's face and down his neck, Jack grins as he kicks his own trousers away.

The Doctor leans in for a searing kiss, grabbing Jack's jaw and pushing his lips open with his tongue, seeking the taste of his immortality, invading his mouth and taking no prisoners. His cock is pressing against Jack’s hip. Knees going weak, Jack groans hungrily; and then the Doctor pulls away. Jack watches breathlessly as his lover walks away from him. The view is admittedly very nice, that lovely arse that fits so well into his hands flexing atop those long runners legs, but where is he _going?_ And Jack stuck here, which is what he asked for, but -! The Doctor pulls the chair over from the corner and sprawls in it a metre away, giving Jack a look over whilst stroking himself slowly. He smiles, letting a hint of darkness show through. “Try to look like you want it, Captain.”

His jaw drops open, even as his hips twitch involuntarily and his lips move in a silent echo: _try to look?_ Surely he is practically salivating at this point. Apparently that is good enough, because the Doctor's head relaxes back against the chair and he moans. He is putting on a _show_ for his captive audience, and Jack can't help but imagine those fingers on his cock, his hand, his mouth, causing those noises from the Doctor, he doesn't even know what he’s imagining but he wants it, he _wants it_.

The Doctor's hand is moving slowly, lightly open-palmed on the upstroke, a swirl of thumb and fingers about the head changing to firm pressure on the downstroke; familiar with the motion, Jack can almost feel it on his own neglected cock. It's driving him mad, watching from just out of reach, and what does he need self-control for anyway; the Doctor hasn't asked it of him. A needy whine escapes from his throat, and then he is tugging at his wrists, hips thrusting shallowly as his world narrows to the movement of the Doctor's hand. As he loses his composure the Doctor is watching him with hooded eyes; his hand speeds up on his cock and his free hand creeps down to cup his balls. He groans and Jack can feel it in the pit of his stomach.

“Don't come,” the Doctor commands him, voice throaty and breath coming faster. Jack regretfully reassembles a portion of self-control; he doesn't think he could have, untouched and standing restrained, but it would have been interesting to find out. Just the smallest portion. He still _wants_ it so badly he can almost taste it, doesn't bother disguising any of that from the Doctor's commanding view, maybe couldn't if he tried. He is painfully hard and his breath is coming in time with the Doctor's as his hand moves faster where _Jack's_ mouth should be, other hand dipping between his legs to tease his entrance where _Jack's fingers should be!_ It is nearly unbearable to watch his lover tense as he nears an orgasm driven by no touch from him, hear his moans and gasping breaths, see his eyes devouring Jack as Jack's are locked on the sight of him, on display infinitely out of reach. “You,” the Doctor gasps, hand pumping quickly, “are,” his back arches, “mine!” He shouts triumphantly and his eyes roll up as he comes, hand stuttering to a stop, belly covered in threads of cool wetness that Jack is _aching_ to lap up.

“Gods of mercy,” he whispers, unable to fall to his knees as he should in the wake of such a claiming. He hangs there, heart full to bursting, body aroused and unconsciously straining toward his lover, awaiting his pleasure.

The Doctor opens his eyes, climbs to his feet a trifle unsteadily. He wipes his belly with his hand and steps toward Jack, who is opening his mouth to reaffirm the Doctor's claim when he says, “No,” and gives Jack his fingers to lick clean. Jack does so with pleasure, but watches his lover closely. There is a strange half smile on his face and his eyes are dark and old. “Not like that.” He pushes his fingers into Jack's willing mouth. “My hand at the wheel, my guiding voice, my light in the dark, my port in the storm. _My Captain_.”

Jack is stunned breathless. He sucks on the Doctor's fingers absently, staring wide-eyed at his face. He had never thought to hear such a declaration. All these things, the Doctor has long been to him; but although in the past he has thought he might provide some of this in turn, he knows now he may not be strong enough to bear up under the pressure, in the long term.

Pulling his fingers away, the Doctor grasps his chin gently and kisses him, slowly, thoroughly, exploring his mouth with his tongue, caressing his throat. Jack moans into his lover's mouth, lets his eyes fall closed, still uncertain but willing to be distracted. The Doctor pulls away slightly, hand dropping slowly down Jack's neck, tracing his jawline with his tongue, toward his right ear. Cheek pressed cool against Jack's jaw, he whispers, “This isn't the kind of faith that requires anything of you,” and bites down on Jack's earlobe, then sucks it into his mouth.

Jack shudders deeply in profound relief; some other time, some other place, he will be what the Doctor needs again, but here and now he can lay down his burden, at long last. He tilts his head back as the Doctor bites lightly down his neck, shuddering again at the slow ticklish progress of the hand down his torso. It feels as though he might float away now, so much lighter for the freedom he has been granted from that crushing responsibility that he might be the one who needs anchoring. Then the Doctor's hand reaches his cock, long fingers encircling it firmly, and he cries out, hips thrusting forward, eyes closed, mind blank, finally, mercifully, _blank_. As another full-body shudder wracks him, he hands over the entirety of his eternal life to the one man who may be able to bear it for a time, and surrenders completely to his lover's will.

Crowding up against him now, still happier warmed by his heat, the Doctor bows his head and lays his face against Jack's neck, hair tickling his shoulder, arm around his waist holding him tight, holding him up. “Beautiful,” he murmurs, “you're so beautiful, Jack, all this for me,” and Jack sobs, broken open but so free, as if light and air were all that was inside.

The Doctor holds him until he calms, washed clean by the storm, and then a while longer. He raises his head and licks at Jack's face, the tracks of tears he hadn't even noticed, Jack realises distantly. Then he pulls back and Jack groans as his hand returns to his cock. “Do you need this?”

“No!” Jack protests, startled into words. “Please, let me -” He's not sure what, but he doesn't want it to end like this.

Staring at him from ancient hazel eyes, so different but the same, always the same, as the icy blue ones that had haunted him for so long, as the brown ones that couldn't bear the sight of him, the Doctor repeats, “Let you -?” Not sure what else to do, Jack nods, returning to comfortable silence. Still considering, his lover resumes the motion of his hand on Jack's cock, stroking lightly; a brush of knuckles up, a smooth open palm down. “What to do with Jack.” He is light-headed and desperate, moaning freely, by the time the Doctor comes to a decision.

“Yes,” he says, letting go abruptly, patting Jack's chest as all his breath leaves him at once and he sags against the wall. “Well, no. Was that too much?” Jack shakes his head, panting, the orgasm that had been threatening to overtake him draining away slowly. The Doctor smiles devilishly at him. “You _want_ me to make it hard for you. Erm. Difficult, for you, I can see it's already quite hard.” He looks amused, and reiterates his prior order. “Don't come, Captain. I'll tell you when you can.” Jack nods as he catches his breath.

Stepping away, the Doctor reaches up and lifts Jack's right wrist from the hook, rubbing his hand to restore circulation, kissing his palm. He moves over and repeats the process with Jack's left hand, then draws Jack after him toward the bed. “This way, Captain.” Arranging Jack on his back on the bed, head pillowed, arms raised toward the head of the bed, the Doctor sets himself atop Jack's chest to reach and clip his cuffs to something; he can move his arms side to side but no closer to his head, and can't reach the other wrist with either. Very pleased with his new position, Jack feasts his eyes on the long expanse of his lover above him and opens his mouth invitingly.

The Doctor's lips quirk up as he regards Jack warmly. “Predictable, am I? Well, _let you_ ; do your best.” He leans forward slightly, hand on the headboard for balance, and his half-erect cock bumps Jack's lips, pushes inside.

Jack swallows it down to the root greedily; finally, _finally_ he gets to touch, to taste, to feel, to know that _he_ is causing the Doctor's pleasure, only him now. His tongue works, providing friction and lubrication, and as his lover tries to pull back slightly he sucks hard and hums in protest, savoring the gasp this produces. He wants to feel him come to full hardness inside his mouth, filling him up, pressing down his throat; he is not in the best position for it but he tries, closes his eyes and keeps sucking and takes this reward for himself. The Doctor allows it, but when Jack has to let go to breathe or risk passing out, he pulls out and slaps Jack's cheek lightly. “Topping from the bottom, Captain. Not allowed.” Placing his hand on Jack's throat, he runs his thumb against his windpipe. “Surrender,” he suggests, gently. “I'll take care of you.”

Jack thought he had, but the Doctor is right, he is fighting it. Too much wanting. Now that some of it is satisfied, maybe he can stay down. He nods and takes a breath, relaxing into his captivity, calling up all the trust he has for the man who has put him here. He will be cared for, here. “Good,” the Doctor says, watching him. “Just like that.” He raises his hand, caresses Jack's face briefly; then, thumb on his lower lip, coaxes his mouth open again. Jack, watching his eyes dilate, remembers the Doctor in a similar position and feels his cock twitch; he licks his lips and the Doctor moans above him. “Jack, my Jack. I should write a sonnet about your _tongue_ -” the last word comes out as another moan as he pushes forward again, into Jack's waiting mouth. He takes what he is given this time, happily, losing himself in the sucking and licking, the taste of his lover's skin, the smell of his arousal.

Too soon the Doctor is pulling away, raising himself off Jack's chest, reaching for the bedside table and returning with the bottle of lube. He settles himself between Jack's legs this time, pushing his knees up and to the sides; he groans, half wanting, half dreading, remembering the Doctor had promised to make it difficult for him.

Bending down, the Doctor laps delicately at the slick puddle of precum on Jack's belly, carefully avoiding his cock despite his increasingly desperate wriggling, until finally he sucks just the head into his mouth. Jack gasps in relief but it turns to a cry of dismay as the Doctor lets go with a wet pop. “Delicious,” he announces to whomever it is he's having a conversation with, because it is certainly no longer Jack. “But no. That would be repetitive, and repetitive is boring. Hm.” He kneels up, pops the cap of the lube, and slicks up his fingers, making sure Jack can see him all the while and smiling in wicked satisfaction at his expression. And maybe at the way he's pulling at his wrists, Jack realises, or maybe it's the whining noise coming from his throat; who knows, who cares, just, _please!_

One cool finger pushes into him, and his back arches as he bites back a shriek. He's not watching anymore, eyes closed, head thrown back. The finger slides out, then is joined by a second before Jack has time to protest the loss. More, he wants _more_ , but the Doctor doesn't oblige, just works him with those two long fingers, a little deeper each time until he is losing his mind; then he goes after Jack's prostate and he does shriek. Loving reassurances drop from the Doctor's lips but he is still relentless, until Jack's hips are moving beyond his control, searching for any friction, any little bit of touch on his cock, and he knows he won't get it because it would send him over that edge that he can't cross without permission. But he is still half hoping for it, lost in sensation, every breath a gasp and every exhale a moan.

Then the fingers are gone, and he groans for the loss but it is a relief as well. Jack hears the pop of the cap again, and can feel the bed shift as the Doctor moves around, but there's no further touch for a moment. He opens his eyes in time to see his lover straddle his waist and reach down to prepare himself with his own fingers. His eyes go wide and his breath speeds back up, choked sobs mixing in with the moans; he is going to come at the first touch on his cock, this is far more than he can take, he can't _possibly_ do anything but fail his lover here.

“Jack, Jack!” The Doctor drops down on one hand, kisses his face, his lips. “Jack, my heart, my light, nothing you do will fail me! Calm down, please calm down.” He presses his cool cheek to Jack's own, flushed and fever-hot, and gradually the blinding panic recedes. “If you can wait for me, wait. If not, Captain, then don't. You cannot fail me here.” He sits up, searching Jack's face for understanding, for belief, and finds enough. He smiles down at Jack, and the love in it is sufficient to carry him through. “You're not going to last long,” he says, “but neither am I. Trust me, Jack.”

Jack trusts. The short respite was enough; he holds on as the Doctor sinks down onto him, takes in the glorious sight of his lover, head thrown back, hands braced on Jack's chest, rising and falling above him, lean strong thighs flexing. He makes noise each time he comes down, long groan of relief turning to sharp cries and half-voiced words, and Jack's voice rises to match as he nears the point of no return.

“Come for me, Captain,” he hears his own guiding light call, and he is staring down at him, and the moment stretches, an infinity in memory, before it shatters. The Doctor comes down on him again and his hips rise to meet him this time and he's screaming as he comes, finally, _finally_ release, all his burdens laid down, all his responsibilities discharged, all his orders carried out, and as his lover sobs out his name and clenches around his cock he lets go the last shreds of control, and is made free.

The Doctor is sprawled on top of him when next he is aware, licking his neck gently. “Alright?” he asks when Jack moves his head.

“Hmm,” Jack replies, which is all he can manage just yet.

“Mm-hm.” His lover pushes himself up and off of Jack, patting his chest fondly. “Stay there,” he says, sounding like he thinks it's a joke, and slowly makes his way to the bathroom. He returns presently with a wet flannel for Jack, and cleans him gently. Tossing the flannel toward the bathroom, he reaches up to free Jack's wrists; well, maybe it was a joke after all. Hard to tell at this level of euphoria. He rubs his hands and kisses his palms as before, but when he sets Jack's hands on his chest the cuffs have gone too.

Feeling oddly bereft, Jack looks up at the Doctor, only to see him watching him sadly. “You're leaving soon,” he says, and Jack looks away. “I can't keep you forever, even as unusually possible as that is with you.” Then he looks down, too. “Not possible for me, anyway.” Jack reaches out and pulls the Doctor close; he comes willingly, laying his head on Jack's shoulder and throwing a leg over his thigh.

“I'm sorry,” the Doctor says, now that he is sure Jack is back to himself. “I pushed you too far.”

“You pulled me back,” Jack replies, forgiving. He can feel sleep dragging him down into its soft embrace, and he is content.

The Doctor sighs, relaxing into him. “I always will, as much always as I have,” he pledges. “My Captain.” Jack smiles, and falls asleep in this strange new equality.

 


	37. Sun in my sky

Without the cuffs, Jack looks light as air; outside the TARDIS the next day the Doctor is transfixed by the passing fancy that a stiff breeze will steal him away. He holds on tight, for a minute. It's not the breeze that will take him, though, it is time and the consequences of his own actions.

He has worn his Captain down to a pale shadow of himself, pushed him past any mortal endurance with barely a word of complaint, and it is painful to watch his flame gutter down as he lays down the responsibility that has been driving him through all these years, all the pain and deaths. For so long he had forgotten Jack had any limits at all, or, be honest, hadn't cared a whit; then he had cared, but cared for other things more. Now… now he sees his mistakes quite clearly, but hasn't yet discovered how to go on. There is no more fixing to be done, there is only going on, until the end.

For Jack, there is only going on.

-+-+-+-

“Once, you took me to a meadow in the mountains somewhere, and showed me the stars you could see from Gallifrey. I wasn't in any state to appreciate it, at the time; will you take me there again?”

The Doctor wants to pretend he didn't hear, keep his head down, poking at the console, or even say _no, offer's expired;_ but he owes Jack. He understands what this is, a last request before the parting, and he won't be so petty as to deny it. He looks up, and whatever he was going to say is gone with his breath, because Jack is standing on the lowest stair dressed in saffron silk, his bright living flame, his light in the darkness. Unheeded, his screwdriver drops from nerveless fingers and clatters to the floor.

“Jack,” he breathes, and takes a hesitant step forward, then another when Jack doesn't move. “Why -” He waves a hand at the bright clothes.

“To give you a new memory.” His Captain smiles tiredly at him. “There's been joy in this, for me; it's a skill, you know, catching at the joy in between the pain. I couldn't stand to think you'd have nothing left of these years. I know you.” Clearly, clearly he does; the Doctor was well on his way to partitioning off the memories, leaving only the guilt and pain. But he remembers all at once Jack following at his shoulder, blazing bright, making sure he looked appropriately god-like; trying to show him the people beyond the timelines; laughing as the Doctor tumbled him into bed in a jealous fit; reciting poetry to the wind. He stretches his hand out to the Doctor. “Come here. I won't run away.”

Another three steps and the Doctor is there, face pressed to the smooth skin of Jack's shoulder, hands slowly stroking up his back. He doesn't run; he wraps an arm around the Doctor's shoulders and tangles the fingers of his other hand in the Doctor's hair, and holds on. “Yes,” the Doctor says then, “we can go there again. Anywhere. Anything.”

Lying in the blue-green not-grass side by side, Jack watches as he points out constellations again. It was a childish thing, amongst Time Lords, making pictures out of stars, but he has always been odd and childish. Eventually he runs out of words and they lie in silence.

“I can’t promise I’ll never change,” Jack says, eventually. “I'm always changing. I’ve changed so much even in this time with you. But I promise there will always be a place for you, with me, no matter how much we both change.”

The Doctor is silent for a moment, then rolls over, propping his arm on his Captain’s chest, looking down at him. He can't help the smile that steals across his face. “And you're the sun in my sky.”

Jack chuckles, and the Doctor leans down to kiss him gently. Then he says the words the Doctor has been expecting and dreading: “I’m ready to go back to Ophicche now.”

-+-+-+-

Preferring to avoid the automated re-sterilisation this time, the Doctor parks the TARDIS inside stasis bay S3A. It has been seven months, local time, since they left; more than eight years for the Doctor. He is not sure how to measure Jack’s time, though Jack doesn’t want to know anyway, so perhaps he needn’t worry about it. Three, maybe three and a half years lived time; and the Doctor may be moving to a new bedroom. He has never been good at not worrying about things, come to think of it.

He is busily _not worrying_ about the howling emptiness chewing through his hearts at the prospect of Jack… not being there.

He is always somewhere, of course, he’s a Fact, but the Doctor can just see the expression he will get if he shows up straight from here; and Jack will know. _Couldn’t last a day without me?_ his Captain will say, brows raised, a suggestive grin on his face but disappointment in his eyes. He can’t bear the disappointment. He will find something to do.

“We there?” Jack is making his way down the stairs, fatigue evident in every movement. He has gone downhill dramatically in the last two days, that blazing, indomitable will set aside, his only remaining desire for rest. The Doctor can’t keep him any longer.

“We’re here.” He goes to him, puts an arm around his waist to support him. The TARDIS has provided bland grey knits similar to what he came aboard with, just in case anyone enters the quarantine facility whilst Jack is there. He is barefoot. Together they make their way toward the doors; Jack stops to lay his hand on the wall before leaving.

“Take care of him, sweetheart. I’ll see you soon.”

It is not far to the empty stasis pod currently showing a maintenance fault, easily convinced to be functioning again. Jack pulls up the lid and steps in, lying down with a look of great relief.

The Doctor stares down at him, hands twisting together, trying to hide the anguish. “When can I… see you again?” His voice cracks, and he swallows thickly, tries to pull himself together. This shouldn't be how Jack sees him last, for all this time, even if he won't be awake for it.

His Captain gives him a wry half smile. “You're the one with the time machine. For my part, come get me in a hundred years; I fancy a fairy tale. Wake me with a kiss.” He reaches up for the Doctor's hand once more, and the Doctor quickly untangles his fingers and holds on, breathing through the nausea in practiced habit. “If you're asking about you… give it a little time. Travel. Think about… different solutions.” He winks, to the Doctor's bafflement. “Don't be afraid to visit if you need to. I've seen you a lot more often than you've seen me, yet.”

Suddenly ideas that have been growing in the Doctor's mind for years crystallise, and he knows what to do. He has wondered who takes care of Jack in his absence: but why in Time should he be absent? He hasn't _been_ absent! Just hasn't done it yet. His time, that has felt so finite for so long, suddenly stretches out into infinity; or at least touches it, a long shadow cast beyond his bounded self. His face must show his revelation, because Jack laughs, and it sounds like freedom.

“Go on, anwylyd. There's so much more to see.”

He leans down to his beloved Captain, and as his lips touch the banked, tired heat of him, as he licks softly into his mouth, caressing that tongue he can never really get enough of, he doesn't think of goodbye, but of next time. The Doctor straightens, and Jack smiles at him beatifically. “My Captain,” he says, promise and valediction, and pushes the lid closed. Jack closes his eyes, and the Doctor points his screwdriver briefly at the controls, and it is done, for now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And thus we come to the end, for now. Thank you so much for reading! I know I left the Doctor in a terrible place, but there is a sequel in the works; I think you can subscribe to me if you want to be notified when I start posting it? As with this one I'll finish it first. (edit: it's available)_  
>  _P.S. There really_ is _an XKCD for everything.[This is basically what happened to the Sep.](https://www.xkcd.com/1191/) Only, you know, bigger._


End file.
